


Shouted Lies, Whispered Truths

by MorganWhoWrites



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-05 05:15:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5362745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganWhoWrites/pseuds/MorganWhoWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SSA Emily Prentiss has profiled many a serial killer, using her intellect and steely resolve to help analyze the behaviors of the country's most scummy people.</p>
<p>Carrie Ortiz is your usual button-pushing, limit testing teenage girl with plenty of attitude and plenty of love and tragedy in her young life.</p>
<p>So what happens when Prentiss and Carrie's worlds collide, bringing them together?</p>
<p>Their story explores what would have happened if Prentiss did indeed adopt Carrie in the Criminal Minds season 3 Episode "Children of the Dark"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginning

Beginning

~*~  
_“Family has become more than just a word; It is connection, it is unconditional love, it is support; It is more than just a word with one meaning, because it is defined by its ability to always remain open.” — Amalia Gratteri_  
~*~

Hey. Do you remember that day? I do; it was the day my life changed, and in so many ways I just…I wonder what the hell I was thinking…or if I was thinking at all. We were called to Denver Colorado, where a family annihilator-style serial killer was loose in the Cherry Creek suburb. Well, actually at first it appeared to be simple home invasion murders, but it ended up being a lot more. Not that you don’t already know this, but there was a part of it I never told you.

 

Before we arrived, the team and I had deduced that there were two very different styles of execution of the victims; one brutal, without empathy and bordering on sadistic, the other unsub was much more remorseful, injecting his victims with sodium pentothal and gently laid the victims on their beds, and therefore, in all likelihood there were two unsubs. As we examined the scene of the latest murder, gathering evidence and firming up our theories, we got word of another murder, but this time, there had been a survivor.

_Carrie left the house, walking in a disjointed way, her adrenaline off the charts, given what she had just seen. Her breath came in short gasps, her heart fluttering painfully in her chest and everything around her seemed disjointed and distorted. She walked out into the road not paying any attention, if indeed she was in any state to do so, and a utilities truck came around the corner and almost ran her over, but the driver slammed on the brakes just in time and jumped out of the truck; he was a fatherly sort, held and calmed her as best he could, and screamed for someone to call an ambulance._

JJ and I came to the hospital after word reached our ears, and as the women of the team, we were assigned to see Carrie Ortiz and see if we could get the story. The doctor who had overseen her care said that she was in and out, and having OD’d on a barbiturate, she was very drowsy. When I first saw her, my heart broke; she was alert when JJ and I came in, but she looked so scared. We talked, JJ taking the lead in questioning her, while I watched as she described what had happened to her family, getting progressively more upset as she got to discovering her parents.

“All right,” I said, moving in and holding her, “that’s enough; you really ought to rest.”

“No!” Carrie objected, “this will help you, right?” I looked at her for a few minutes before nodding. “Well then, I want to tell you.”  
She went on to further outline the two unsubs, giving us her insight into their motives and the fact that the more remorseful one, in talking to her, had referred to the other one as his brother and called her Lucy. We thanked her for her information and left.

“Get some rest,” I said gently.

“Will I see you again?” she asked tentatively.

I smiled. “Probably.”

In fact, JJ and I went to see her after we got word that the doctor had said she was fit to be released from the hospital. With JJ’s help, I picked out some clothes for her to wear, grabbing three of everything since I didn’t know what she liked. We got there, and JJ and I had a halfhearted discussion about what would happen to her, when suddenly, a scream could be heard; frantically, I searched for the source of the sound, and it appeared to be coming from her room, and JJ and I charged over to see her in the throes of a nightmare.

“Carrie, Carrie,” I said soothingly, instinctively holding her to me, “it’s okay, it was just a dream; you’re safe, I’ve got you; you’re safe.” She calmed down and looked at me a bit fuzzily, trying to sort herself out. I smiled warmly, moving sweaty hair out of her face.

“I’m okay,” she said; “I’m okay.”

“Here,” I said, “I brought you some clean clothes. I just grabbed three of everything since I don’t really know what you like.” She sort of cracked a grin. “I’ll let you get changed.” I left the room to give her some privacy, and after a moment, we headed to the station with her tagging along so she could tell the boss, Aaron Hotchner what she knew. We were able to find out how the one unsub had been getting the pentothal and with our fine tech analyst, Penelope Garcia, narrowed down eight possible vet techs who had access to the pentothal, and Carrie was able to ID the correct one. Hotch and most of the team headed out, murmuring their thanks, while I stayed with her.

“Your parents would be really proud of you,” I said.

“It’s too late to be a good daughter now,” Carrie replied. The amount of self-loathing in her voice was hard for me to hear; I think that might have been when I really felt like I wanted to do something for her.

“Oh that’s not true,” I protested.

“I was horrible to them….and now they’re gone.”

I sighed, my mind racing, trying to figure out what to tell her; how to console her; ID’ing Robles had brought her grief to the forefront.

“Why do they do it?” Carrie pressed me, “I mean, there has to be a reason, right?”

“Oh, you’ll drive yourself crazy, trying to figure out the reason.”

“I go crazy every time I close my eyes.”

I decided to tell her at least a partial truth. It was better than nothing…right?

“It may have to do…with what happened to them when they were younger,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw JJ look at me, skeptical of my decision.

“Like what, they were abused or something?”

“There’s a good chance.”

“Are there any happy families?” Carrie asked me plaintively.

I didn’t have an answer to that. I couldn’t; certainly being honest about my family probably wouldn’t bring her much comfort, but when she said that, I never felt more connected to her.

I didn’t have an answer to that. I couldn’t; certainly being honest about my family probably wouldn’t bring her much comfort, but when she said that, I never felt more connected to her.

The team captured Ervin Robles, the second unsub after a little while, and brought him in for questioning, and he simply did not respond, with Hotch, Derek Morgan and I all taking turns grilling him; we reasoned that he had learned to stay silent early on in his life in the foster care. Finally, Hotch looked at me.

“We won’t get anywhere with us…”

“What are you thinking?” I asked him.

“He might respond —”

“To family,” I said, following Hotch’s line of logic. “No. Hotch, we can’t ask her to go in there.”

“It’s our best shot at getting him to open up,” Hotch argued.

I searched his face for any clues about what he was thinking.

“Fine,” I said grumpily, “but I’ll be in there with her.”

Hotch nodded and sent one of the Denver PD officers to get her.

“Remember, he’ll be in handcuffs…leg restraints…there’ll be nothing to worry about,” Hotch reassured her as he led her into the police station.

“And Emily will be right there with you,” JJ added.

“You don’t have to do this, Carrie,” I said, feeling protective.

“No,” she said, “I want to.

Standing outside the interview room, Hotch reminded her we were interested in Gary, and to keep him engaged, while JJ coached her to let me keep him on track. As she started to follow Hotch into the interview room, I looked at JJ; my cold feet and desire to protect Carrie flared up.

“Okay, look, can we just stop and think about this for a moment?” I asked.

“She’ll be okay,” JJ said.

“She’s just a kid. What is she trying to prove here?”

JJ looked at me, and I knew she understood, empathized with my desire to protect her, and had overheard our conversation earlier.

“That she can be a good daughter,” JJ said meaningfully. I stared at her, and although I did not want to, had to admit she was right. I nodded, sighed, and followed Carrie into the interview room.

She and I sat down across from Robles, and Carrie started asking him basic questions about why. I soon realized that I was not in control of the interview, and although I tried to interject, Carrie was determined to not waste this opportunity. I could not deny that Robles did indeed open up to her, telling her just what he and his brother Gary suffered at the hands of their abusive foster parents, and how much worse Gary had it than he did, that he wanted to stop, but Gary wouldn’t hear of it; they would continue what they saw as vengeance; Gary killing parents; first just parents that had abused their kids, but when that alone was not enough, just parents were the subject of his rage, where Robles believed that he was killing the children mercifully, saving them from the horrors of the foster care system, yes, even Carrie’s little brother Danny were now in a better, safer place, Robles alleged, regardless of the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Ortiz were in fact loving parents. I could see the disgust and fear on Carrie’s face as she reached across the table, put his hand atop hers and reassured him that his foster mother could not hurt him any more. But when Hotch ordered Robles removed from the room, Carrie slowly started to cry, finally turning and allowing herself to be hugged by me.

“Hey,” I soothed her, “you did great; you did so great, Carrie.”

 

#

 

We finally had all of the pieces of the puzzle — almost; Gary had abducted two kids currently in the care of his former foster mother and eventually, we tracked him down to a restaurant where he held the brother hostage and had the sister deliver us a message, and Hotch then negotiated with him, and without even breaking a sweat, Gary turned the boy over to us, and where Child Services could not remove the kids from the current home, in spite of what we knew of what happened under that roof, Morgan and I were forced to drop them off. However, Gary was not quite done playing his game just yet. Morgan told the boy, Tyler, to feel free to call him anytime if ever they laid an unwanted finger on him, and just as we were about to leave, Hotch called Morgan, asking if we had searched the kids’ backpacks.

“Backpacks?” Morgan asked, “no, we didn’t search the back —”

Gunshots rang out from inside the house, and Morgan and I jumped out of the car and bolted into the house to find Tyler, pumped with adrenaline standing completely still in the kitchen of the house, several bullet holes in various pictures of the “happy” family that Tyler alleged were lies, and the abusive foster “mother” Mrs. Manwaring cowering on the floor, and as much as I loathed what she had inflicted on the kids in her care — would Carrie be sent to a family like hers? Not if I had anything to do with it — I couldn’t help but feel like I couldn’t blame her, having just been sort-of shot at, and Morgan managed to talk Tyler into giving him the gun, reassuring the distraught boy he was not Gary, even if he had lived in the same house and experienced some of the abuse Gary had. I could tell Morgan was shook up as we drove back to the police station.  
Later that evening, we began packing things up; I wondered again what the hell was to become of Carrie; my mind was focused almost on that, and I know that Hotch, across the desk from me had noticed my preoccupation. Finally, I looked at him.

“I can take her,” I said.

“Take her?” Hotch replied, frowning.

“Carrie — to D.C.”

“Do you mean to live with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“I have room, money, and you know, she’s smart. Two, three years she’ll go to college.” Oh but there was so much more I chose to not say out loud, mostly because I wasn’t sure what my feelings and desires meant.

“Prentiss. This is the job, and I need to know you can be objective.”

“And I need to know I can be human.”

“JJ is attempting to reach her uncle in Los Angeles.”

“Oh….Oh that’s…that’s great.”

I don’t really know what happened, only that I was so deeply touched by Carrie, moved by her story, especially in her drive to prove she could be a good daughter; I had that too. I just wanted to be able to do something for her, and I had not really had any maternal urges before, and the feelings that Carrie brought out thrilled and scared me.  
So when we were almost finished with the case, and the team still had not heard from the Ortiz family that lived in LA, extended family of Carrie’s, I began to think, hope, dream….and then I had opened my mouth and drawn the suspicions of my Unit Chief.

Then, it was wheels up in twenty minutes and I was looking at turning over Carrie to the DSS agents to await her extended family, which brought all manner of feelings into the pit of my stomach, the team’s formidable media and family liaison, Jennifer Jareau, who we all called JJ, came in, looking grave.  
“Hotch,” she said, “I need you for a moment.” Hotch nodded, and left with her into a small office at the police station that had hosted us, and they had a short conversation, and JJ got back on the phone. Finally, Hotch poked his head out of the office, locked eyes with me and beckoned me into the office.

“So I just got off the phone with Raul Ortiz, Carrie’s uncle,” JJ said, “and he is either unable to, or unwilling to take Carrie at least for now, so we need to determine what will happen to her.”

“I told JJ about your generous offer,” Hotch said,

“And I think it’ll have to do for now,” JJ said. “Because he was so unspecific, I don’t know if he means to turn over his parental rights as her next of kin, but I spoke to a colleague in Child Services and she said that she thinks Emily could become an interim guardian until Mr. Ortiz makes up his mind.”

“Do you think he will make up his mind?” I asked, unable to help myself.

“I don’t know,” JJ said, “I could tell there was no love between him and Mr. Ortiz, but he could also just be shaken up. I really don’t know. I don’t even know how he feels about his brother being dead.”

“JJ, can I have a moment with Prentiss? Tell the others and the pilots that we need a little more time, please.” JJ nodded and left. “Emily, what I’m letting you do,” Hotch said, facing me now, “is perhaps the most inadvisable thing we could possibly do, and I was surprised that Child Services went along with this, and I want you to understand that this may not come without consequence. This will be a hard sell for the bureau directors to get behind.”

He paused for a long moment and then looked at me in a more human way. “I understand you, Emily, far more than you think, and I understand your drive, and I want you to know just how hard it will be, especially since you are single. When we get back to Virginia, I want you to take a few days to figure things out, where you will fit into the BAU after this. I’m not saying this to be mean, I’m saying this because you will have very limited supports, and if you want to remain on this team, I need you to be as available as you are now. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Go talk to her; wheels up in fifteen minutes.” I nodded.

I found her in the lobby area of the police station playing chess with Spencer Reid. She was loosing badly, and Reid was enjoying himself immensely.

“Carrie,” I said, “can we talk?”

“Okay,” she said with a shrug.

“I need a coffee,” I said, “do you drink it?”

“I’m 15,” Carrie said, “my mom didn’t want me…” she broke off as her voice broke. I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. She did not look at me. “Sure. I’ll have one. I’d rather not go to sleep anyway.” I nodded and led her to the coffee maker which had just about two cups left in it. I found two Styrofoam cups and filled them, talking as I did so.

“When I was 15,” I said, “my mother was posted to Italy and while we lived there, and I had my first taste of coffee; they brew it a lot stronger over there, so by the time I returned to the US to begin my studies at Yale, American coffee wasn’t as potent for me as it should have been.”

Carrie chuckled.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her.

She shrugged again. “I don’t know,” she said, “I just…I’ve never had to go through so many feelings all at once.”

“I bet,” I said, as warmly as I could manage. She turned away from me and took a few unsteady breaths.

“What will happen to me?” She asked at length.

I had thought about this all evening, yet actually faced with the question, I was rendered speechless. Thankfully, JJ had followed me at a distance and saved me.

“Carrie, let’s sit down,” JJ said, and we sat on either side of her on a bench. “Carrie, your uncle in Los Angeles has said he is unable to take you in for now.”

“Figures,” Carrie said, in direct contrast to the sadness and fear in her expression, “he never had that much interest in me or Danny; I think he resented Dad for succeeding in his education and making a stable business for himself and moving us out here to Colorado and get away from the culture that we would have been raised in if we stayed in LA.”

“It sounds like your father loved you very much,” JJ said. I thought I was empathetic, but I’ve got nothing on JJ.

Carrie nodded, swallowing and fighting the sobs building. “What will I do?” She asked after a long moment, almost to herself.

Now I swallowed. Now or never.

“Carrie, would you like to live with someone?”

“Not really, not after what happened. I never want to go into foster care, and my uncle won’t have me! So who would I live with?!”

“If you would like to, with me.”

“What?”

“With the refusal of your uncle, Child Services and I think we can at least have Emily appointed your guardian ad litem until your uncle makes up his mind,” JJ explained.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes,” I said, “but only if you want to; you’re old enough to make that decision on your own.”

“I guess I have no choice,” Carrie said, “do I have anywhere else to turn?”

“I don’t know,” I said, moving to the floor to face her, “but I promise I will take care of you and be there for you, and —”

“Will you love me?” Carrie asked in an almost embarrassed tone.

“Yes,” I vowed.

“Guys,” JJ said quietly, “wheels up in ten minutes; we really need to get going.”

I frowned. The impulsiveness of the moment was catching up with me. “Can you wait here for a second, I need to make a call.” I stepped out.

“Hotch? Prentiss. Can I stay here tonight? It just occurred to me that Carrie needs to get her things together and say goodbye to her friends and such, and I can stay here and watch out for her.”

“I’m sorry, Prentiss, I need you and the rest of the crew for the debrief — especially now. I will grant you a five day weekend starting tomorrow to get everything in order.”

“Understood; we’ll meet you at the airport in a few minutes.”

“Hotch won’t let me stay here. I’m sorry, Carrie.”

“I don’t have a lot of friends anyway. It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does. Hotch just granted me some personal time so we can come back and put everything in order.”

“Including my parents and brother’s services?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go,” JJ said.

I took Carrie’s hand as we left the police station and got into one of the two large Chevy SUVs that we usually traveled in. JJ drove and I sat in back with Carrie, but we didn’t talk, and I could tell by her expression she was still very much processing the changes from that day. It had been a long one, and it was already close to seven o clock local, which meant by the time we got back to Virginia it would be past ten. She perked up when we pulled in the general aviation part of the airport and she saw the plane we traveled on.

“Whoa, what is that?” She asked.

“That is a Gulfstream G550,” Dr. Spencer Reid said, meeting us, “it has a 14 to 19 passenger capacity, a 93 foot wingspan, 96.5 length overall, two Rolls-Royce BR710 Turbofan engines, and —”

“Not now, Reid,” I said gently. “Spencer, this is Carrie, Carrie, this is Dr. Spencer Reid.”

“Right, sorry,” Reid said, “anyway, welcome aboard, Carrie.”

JJ , Carrie and I boarded the plane, and the pilot pulled up and shut the door, and soon we were on our way. Carrie had chosen the sofa on the plane, and I initially sat down beside her, but we did not speak, and looking at her, she seemed beyond tired. I glanced around the cabin; Hotch was re-reading the case file, Morgan was listening to his music, Reid was reading and JJ sat absentmindedly in her seat. As we got to a cruising altitude, Carrie began to nod off.

“Here, lie down and sleep,” I said. She hesitated. “It’s fine.” After a few minutes of debating with herself, she stretched out and closed her eyes, and in a few minutes, she was sound asleep. I hesitated before giving her forehead a very quick, soft kiss, feeling very self conscious of any of my teammates seeing me, but at the same time, in one of our conversations, Carrie had confessed to me that she went crazy every time she closed her eyes. Would I be able to help her manage that pain?

I think only JJ noticed me, and she merely smiled, grabbed a blanket from one of the storage compartments, brought it over and handed it to me, and I unfolded it and draped it over Carrie, and watched her for a few minutes before taking one of the seats across from the couch and looking out the window. I was lost in thought, and brooding about the future and not all of it was happy, and it must have shown.

“Hey, are you all right?” JJ asked, taking the seat opposite me and taking my hand.

“Yeah,” I said, sighing, “I’m just, I don’t know…I guess I feel…scared?”

“I don’t blame you.”

“I just hope I can be…you know, what she deserves, or…you know….” I wasn’t usually so lost for words.

“Hey,” JJ said, squeezing my hand and smiling warmly at me, “you’re going to be great, I can tell.” She smiled even more. “Get some sleep, Mom.”

I nodded, gave her a nonverbal thank you, and glanced back at Carrie, reclined my seat a little bit and closed my eyes.

#

I’ve never written openly or candidly about Carrie; it was too great of a risk, both to where I am now, and to the fact that I denied the extent of how much she shaped who I am, and the turn my life took after I adopted her; I never even told anyone besides myself, her and JJ, who I asked to be her godmother, the details of how I even came to have full custody of her; oh Hotch knew I was her mother, and he supported me, even as he could do only so much for his son, and for that I am so completely grateful to him.  
So if you’re reading this, and I know you are, please, do me a favor and make sure that you pass this on. I need to tell the story now. It’s time, and Carrie deserves it.

#

Carrie woke a bit when we landed back at the Quantico AFB, and I observed her, trying to not go too professional profiler on her, but at the same time judge the wisdom of driving the extra hour back to my house in DC. She was definitely tired, no question, but where could we stay in Quantico? There was the Quantico Marriott Courtyard, but DC was my home; the house was where I went when I needed space; to get away from it all, and if anyone needed that, it was Carrie.

“So what do we do now?” She asked, trying to hide the crankiness in her voice, tinged with a healthy amount of fear; she was bravely and boldly taking a terrifying leap into something I doubt she’d ever conceived of in her wildest imagination.

“Are you up for a drive?” I asked her, “I have a cozy little row house in DC where we could get some sleep, and Agent Hotchner has allowed me some personal time to get us both oriented.”

“Ugh, do I have a choice?”

“Yes. We could take a room at the hotel here, if you like, but the house is much more comfy.”

Carrie shrugged. “Whatever. I guess. I’ll try and sleep some more in the car.”

“All right; this way.” I put my arm tentatively over her shoulder and led her towards where my car, a VW Passat TDI wagon was parked; I turned and waved to the rest of the team.  
“Well, uh, see you in few days, guys,” I said, flashing them a sort of awkward, sort of brilliant smile.

“Call me, Emily,” JJ said.

Once we hit 95 towards DC, the steady rhythm of the diesel lulled Carrie back into a stupor, not quite asleep, not quite awake, and maybe it wasn’t just the engine contributing to that fact, but I was kind of slightly worried.

“You okay?”

“Mmm,” she answered, non-committal.

“Everything will be okay,” I said.

“Will it?”

“I hope so.”

I fell silent again, feeling completely silly, like I was trying too hard; or was I not trying hard enough?  
_How do I bond with you, Carrie?_

We finally got to the apartment, and I pulled up to the curb, parked, grabbed by go bag and purse, took the keys out, flipped through the various ones until I got the house key, and led Carrie up to the front door and opened up.

“Whoa, nice house,” Carrie said.

“Thank you,” I said, “there’s a couch in the living room there if you want to crash there while I go make sure the beds are all made up.” She nodded, no energy left to argue the point, and while she curled up, I went upstairs to check the beds, and put sheets on the bed immediately adjoining mine so that all of them were available to her.

“Hey. Carrie.” I shook her gently when I came back downstairs, “the beds are ready. Come on.” She barely woke up enough to stumble with my help up the stairs.  
“That one’s mine,” I said, indicating a room with a queen size bed painted in a gentle cream; the bed had an iron frame, “but either of the other two can be yours. If you need to pee in the night, the bathroom is right across from the staircase. I usually leave the lights on over the sink to see it in the dark.”

Carrie indicated the one adjoining mine, got up on the bed fully dressed and almost instantly fell into the deepest sleep, everything hitting her so hard in the moment and expressing itself as a powerful, immense, all-consuming exhaustion. Gently I moved the covers over her and smoothed them out, looking at her for a moment.  
“Good night,” I said quietly, even though she was already fast asleep, and then, feeling extremely awkward, I added, even quieter, “I love you, Carrie.”


	2. The Adoption

  
The Adoption

I got up early the next morning and came downstairs to put water on for my coffee and sat down, my mind in overdrive. Carrie was still asleep, hopefully getting some actual rest; I had checked on her a couple times in the night when I’d gotten up to pee, and at one time, I went into her room and she was wriggling around in the sheets and whimpering in her sleep, and I figured she was revisiting the deaths of her family. I gently stroked her hair and cheek and it seemed to have an effect, but as far as I could tell, it was minimal, and her hair stuck to her forehead from sweat.

Sitting down on one of the armchairs behind the kitchen area and clutching the hot mug, I tried to not dwell too much on the fears and insecurities raging in my head: how would I balance work and Carrie? Could I actually love her? What would she need? Could I be there for her at the drop of a hat? Is this rushed? Was it a good choice, well thought out and considered? And would I become just like my mother?

Stop, Emily, just stop. You made your choice, and think what can come when you two get used to each other; think what you have to offer her; you won’t do your new daughter any favors by wallowing in fear and doubt.

“Emily?” Carrie called from the bottom of the stairs sounding embarrassed and scared.

“In the kitchen,” I called back. She finally found me where I was sitting. She was wearing one of my mother’s bathrobes that I had in my closet.

“I took a shower; I felt gross, having slept in my clothes,” she said, sounding almost defensive; indeed, I could see the tension in her body, “and I found this in your closet. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not in the slightest,” I said smiling at her. “Let me wash your clothes so you have something to wear, and then we might need to get you an outfit or two until we can get back to Colorado and take care of stuff. You want to go today? I can get us tickets.”

“Wait, slow down, Emily — can I call you Emily?”

“You can call me whatever you want,” I said. “Breakfast?”

“Yeah, thanks. And, um…thank you for…you know, letting me stay.” I smiled.

“You’re welcome, Carrie.”

She didn’t look directly at me, and was awkward about it, but she held out her arms, and I met her for a hug. We weren’t bonded just yet, but we were trying, and in that moment, I felt a joy I can’t even describe.

“So what do you want? Scrambled eggs sound good?”

“Yeah,” Carrie said, “and can I have a cup of coffee?”

“Sure,” I said, moving into the kitchen and getting some eggs from the fridge, along with Roma tomatoes, garlic, chilies and parsley. I poured the coffee and gave the mug to Carrie before I turned back to prepping the eggs.

“Wow,” Carrie said, watching me from where she was sitting at the breakfast nook, “you may just be better at cooking than my mom, and she’s Latina.” She laughed, and I smiled, transferring the egg mix to a frying pan and turning on the heat. I whisked them and sipped my coffee, my whole body felt light.

After breakfast I went back upstairs to get Carrie’s clothes, picked them up and headed back downstairs where my washer and dryer were tucked away in a closet in the dining room. I was just throwing them in when the phone rang. Before I could do anything about it, Carrie, closer to the phone, picked up.

“The Prentiss residence,” she said with a laugh, “Carrie speaking.”

“Hello Carrie, this is Aaron Hotchner, Emily’s boss; is she around?”

“I remember you,” Carrie said, her voice loosing it’s cheer, “yeah. Hold on.

“For you,” she said, coming into the dining room as I started the washer.

“Hotch?”

“Prentiss, we need to figure out how this is going to work in terms of planning cases, and you should really be with us on this one, so I want your permission to have myself or the team call you if we need you.”

“To come to wherever you’re going?”

“No, I managed to get you two weeks, calling it maternity leave; Denver PD called, and you, as Carrie’s guardian are partly responsible for determining what will be done with the bodies.”

“Oh God,” I said; I had put off thinking about the funeral of Carrie’s family.

“So can we call you if we need your input?”

“All right, but as soon as I have plans about that, I want that day to be silent. No calls or contact unless you want to come.”

“Understood.”

“How about for emergency cases, you call me on the computer? I’ll get Garcia over to set me up an office somewhere in here.”

“I’ll try and get it done.”

“Okay. And Hotch? Thank you. This means a lot to me.”

“Yeah. Hey Emily; congratulations.”

“Thanks, Hotch.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

Carrie and I ended up having to wait an hour and a half for her clothes to finish cleaning up, and once she was dressed, she agreed that it would be a good idea to go shopping for an outfit or two. I led her to the nearest subway stop to the house, the Stadium/Armory metro station, telling her that it was a good idea to know how to get here first and foremost, as this was her gateway to exploring the city; I promised her that at first, I wanted to be there with her until she got oriented, but thereafter, she could begin to explore on her own. She looked at me funny, and I wonder if I was becoming too maternal too fast. I sighed; we needed to have that discussion soon, among many others I was not looking forward to. But I smiled when Carrie went nuts that there was a Forever 21 barely two blocks away from the Metro Center station, the gateway to the more downtown-y part of the city, with all the classic shopping chains and eateries. $475 dollars, three outfits and a happy Carrie later, I convinced her to walk with me a few blocks to the Gallery Place mall where there was a Loft, the source of many of my pantsuits that I wore on a typical workday. I went in, found a few outfits I liked, took them to the dressing room, and while Carrie waited, made a call in the privacy of the changing room.

“The office of Elizabeth Prentiss, this is Fran, how can I help?”

“Elizabeth Prentiss, please.”

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“Emily Prentiss.”

“Hi kiddo, let me get your mother for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Elizabeth Prentiss.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi.”

“So, um…I was just wondering if…if maybe you would like to have lunch with me at Legal Seafoods by Gallery Place; there’s, uh, someone I want you to meet.”

“When?”

“In about ten minutes; I just want to finish shopping at Loft.”

“Oh, very well; I’ll call in a reservation; don’t be late.”

I tried on my new clothes with shaky hands, decided that I didn’t like them, had already spent too much on Carrie’s clothes if I wanted lunch, and besides, my other suits weren’t that worn out yet. I stepped out of the changing room empty handed.

“Nothing?” Carrie asked me incredulously.

“Not today,” I said with a smile; “hey, are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a Legal Sea Foods across the street; I asked my mother to meet us there so you two can meet.”

“Um,” Carrie fidgeted, “that sounds fun, it really does, but, um, doesn’t this feel a bit fast? I mean…I don’t know….”

“Does it feel too fast for you?”

“Like I said,” she said with a touch of defiance, “I don’t know; you just make everything sound so…settled.”

“Does that make you uncomfortable?”

“I don’t know, I guess I just feel like I haven’t adjusted yet.”

“I’m sorry,” I said; “do you want me to cancel?”

She shook her head. “No. I just wish I knew what to feel.”

“Hey,” I said, putting my arm on her back, “not knowing what to feel is okay, you know.”

She nodded. “Can we eat?” I nodded.

“Let’s go.”

We arrived early, and so I told the hostess that we were the Elizabeth Prentiss party and she led us to a quiet corner where we waited for my mother to show up. My mother, Elizabeth Prentiss, was an ambassador for the US, and for most of my childhood, we moved from place to place, never staying long, only as long as my mother was posted there, and I never really had a chance to form long lasting friendships with anyone, because it was a given that in a few months or so, I would move again, save a certain young man who I knew when our parents were mutually posted in Italy…bad thought, Emily; painful memory.

“Hello, Emily.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“So who is this?”

“Mom, this is Carrie; Carrie this is my mother, Elizabeth Prentiss.”

“Pleased to meet you; are you two friends? I always did think Emily ought to mentor someone; I mean, she does okay for herself.”

“More than okay,” Carrie said, “I mean, she’s pretty high up in the FBI.”

“Yes, going to the BAU was a big promotion for her.”

“You don’t sound very proud of her,” Carrie commented, frowning.

“I am,” Mom said, “I just feel…never mind. So, she’s mentoring you then? I take it you too have aspirations towards the FBI?”

“Actually, Mom, I’m her temporary guardian while we wait for her uncle to decide if he can take her into his family or not.”  
Mom stared at me, beady and intense, almost like Hotch’s gaze; I swallowed uncomfortably. The waiter brought out the salads we’d ordered, and Carrie started eating, but Mom continued to stare at me, and I didn’t feel like eating under her gaze.

“You’re fostering this girl?” Mom finally asked, utterly incredulous; “might I remind you, you work in a job that requires you to be available twenty four-seven, and that’s for starters. Do you really think you have the time or the energy to raise a teenager?!”

“Yes; I’ll work it out with work. I have Hotchner’s support in this, but it would be nice to have yours, too.”

“Yes, Aaron Hotchner; neither Section Chief Strauss or I think very highly of him.”

“I know,” I said darkly, “Strauss hired me to spy on Hotch because she wanted to sack him; she only relented when I threatened to resign and after she saw him work in the field and realized he is a fine leader of the BAU.”

“So you’re a temporary guardian? Well, I hope her uncle can take her in; he knows her so much better than you.”

I tried to not show just how much my mother’s words hurt.

“I don’t,” Carrie said quietly, staring at her plate, “Uncle Raul really doesn’t know me; he never visits, and between him and Emily it’s like stranger and super-stranger, him being the latter. He’s a bit of a creep, and I really like Emily. Once I get to know her better….” She trailed off, but my heart swelled and I had to fight to not start crying. “Also,” Carrie continued, “you made an awfully large assumption about my family dynamic, Mrs. Prentiss.”

“Sorry,” Mom said, not really sounding it. “So how did the two of you meet anyway?”

“We profiled two unsubs who killed her parents and brother,” I said.

“Can we not talk about that?”

“Of course, Carrie,” I said.

“That sounds like mixing work and —”

“Mom, you heard her; let’s not go there. Or Italy for that matter.”

“Why? Does that time have to do with this?”

“No, Mom.”

“Who will be her father?”

“You know, Mom, I’m really starting to regret inviting you to lunch,” I said testily.

Our food came, and I ate with a sadness as I realized that the first meeting had gone so badly. There was no further conversation, and Mom paid the bill and left in a hurry, eager to get back to work, and more slowly, Carrie and I left the restaurant, walked to the Garden Place/Chinatown metro station, hopped on the green line to L’Enfant, changed to the blue line, took that to Stadium, and then walked home, all in silence, but once we got into the house, settled and had started watching TV, she turned to me.  
“I’d like to go back to Denver soon if that’s all right with you; I want to feel like everything’s settled too,” Carrie said.  
“Sure thing; how about next week?”  
“Good,” Carrie said.  
“I’ll get tickets.” I patted her leg and got up, changed all her new clothes from the wash to the dryer, and grabbed my laptop out of my briefcase, and fired it up.

#

The next week saw us nervously sitting at the gate of Frontier Airlines flight 474 nonstop to Denver from Washington Reagan airport where I planned to spend a week and a half to lay Carrie’s family to rest, meet with a lawyer representing the estate of the Ortiz family, and hopefully just tie everything up. I briefly communicated to Hotch, make sure he knew that Carrie and I had picked the day after our arrival to be the funeral and that he should not call, just before boarding the plane, an Airbus A320, the first commercial airliner that I had taken for a few years, and finding our seats.

As the plane took off, and the city of DC shrank behind us, I began to get an intense feeling of nervousness I could not fully explain.

“How am I going to deal with this?” Carrie asked me, “like, loosing all my friends and stuff and having to start over? I mean, I’d have to do it regardless of whether you or Uncle Raul takes care of me, but yeah….”

“I don’t know if I’m the best to answer that,” I replied, “you know I told you that I lived in Italy with my mother when I was your age? Well I moved around a lot with her as a kid depending on her postings as ambassador, so as a kid I moved around a lot and never got to form real strong bonds with anyone.” I smiled sadly.

“But you must have had a few good friends, right?”

“Yes. His name was Matthew; he made me feel really good.”

“What did he do?”

“Do you mind if I don’t answer? It’s a really personal story.”

“Okay, sure.”

“Thank you.”

Carrie nodded, and turned her focus to staring out the window and watching the clouds go by.

When we landed in Denver, we found our way outdoors; I had packed two changes of clothes for both Carrie and myself in my go bag so we didn’t need to check anything, and we emerged to flag a cab — or so I thought.

“Carrie?!”

“Rachel!!” Carrie ran to meet another girl about her age with auburn hair who was equally running for Carrie; they met halfway in a rib-crushing hug, giggling and screaming in a mix of emotion; I’m pretty sure I heard Carrie sob.

“What are you doing here, Rach?”

“I heard you were coming back; Petra’s mom works for the funeral home that will be handling your family’s service. Who’s this, then?”

“Emily, this is my best friend Rachel Calliope, Rachel this is Emily, my…my…”

“Her temporary guardian,” I said shaking Rachel’s hand, “Agent Emily Prentiss; nice to meet you.”

“Same,” Rachel said, “this is my dad George.”

“A pleasure as well, Mr. Calliope.”

“So, let me and my daughter take you to your hotel. Temporary guardian?”

“We’re waiting on word from her uncle.”

“Good luck; Robert Ortiz and I were close, and he and his brother were not, to put it mildly. Come on, my car’s this way.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Could Carrie stay with us for a few nights? We have some news we want to share with her.”

“Oh sure, if that sounds fun for you,” I turned to look at her, but the way she and Rachel held each other was answer enough.

Three days later was the funeral; I tried to hang back, let Carrie be alone with her friends, the ones who knew her parents as well as she did; better than I did, and for that, I felt guilty. To hear Carrie’s heaving sobs, though…it was probably for the best that she left the service with Rachel, her father, and her mother Bevin, who I had just met. Back at the hotel, as I was alone, I decided to ransack the mini bar, and after a couple, fished out my phone.

“Hotchner.”

“Hi, Hotch.”

“Hi, Emily. Why are you calling? Today’s the big day, right?”

“Yeah. To be honest, I didn’t think you wouldn’t call; my note to you was more of a suggestion than a demand for you to not call.”

“It was the right thing to do. How is Carrie?”

“Absolutely horrible; have you ever had to lay to rest both parents AND a sibling? She’s spending some time with her best friend. I mean holy…” I sighed. “You know, I met her uncle yesterday?”

“Oh? And?”

“He’s quite a character, Hotch; probably a few degrees away from an unsub.”

“You must be exaggerating.”

“Maybe a little.”

“Emily, have you been drinking?”

“Sampling the mini bar; so what? This is my leave.”

“Relax; I’m not going to chide you, but what’s going on?”

I let out my breath noisily. “Jesus. Hotch — I’m going to be a mother. When Raul and I met and he refused point blank to adopt Carrie; I’d almost go so far as to say he hated her, but for what, I can’t imagine. We went to a Denver judge and he immediately signed over his parental rights without a second thought, and the judge said he’ll contact a colleague in DC and arrange some paperwork and home visits by Child Services, but he didn’t think there will be any issues, especially with Raul being the only known living relative.”

“Yet you sound unhappy; regret?”

“Regret? Hell no, but scared out of my gourd? You bet.”

“Any ideas why Raul was so resistant?”

“None.”

“Emily, you are a first class profiler; surely something registered to you?”

“That’s the thing, though; I wasn’t in that head space then; I was barely managing my emotions, given that this had to happen back to back with the service….I guess if I had to make an educated guess, he easily profiles as someone who has an immense dislike of responsibility, which is probably why Robert was so much more successful.”

“Sounds reasonable. How’s Carrie taking that news?”

“She’s processing it. I feel so guilty I’m taking her away from all of this, back to DC.”

“Actually, you won’t.”

“Oh hang on, Hotch, Carrie just entered our hotel room.”

“I’ll let you spend some time with your daughter. Congratulations Emily.”

“Thank you Hotch. Yeah. Goodbye.

“So what do you mean, Carrie?”

“Rachel and her family are moving to DC! Rach’s sister Lily is starting at Georgetown! And George is taking a job at the Danish Embassy, but don’t mention that; strictly speaking it’s confidential.”

“I have had some experience with confidential stuff,” I said with a wry smile.

“So…” Carrie said hesitatingly, “so…wow. Like…wow.”

“I know the feeling.”

“You’re my mom…Jesus.”

“Yeah, I feel the same way.”

“Jesus,” Carrie said again, before bursting into tears. She moved slowly, embarrassedly, over to the bed where I had been lying, talking to Hotch and looked at me, pleading with her eyes. It was awkward at first, but I hugged her, and the awkwardness soon passed — more or less as my own tears were added to the mix.

“Are you all right?” I asked after a long moment of sheer emotion passed.

“I…I think I will be.”

“I think you will be too. Now come on, it’s late, we’ve both been through a ton these last two days. You want to shower?”

“I’ll do it in the morning.”

“All right. Well you should get ready for bed.”

She nodded and left for the bathroom, shut the door, did her pre-bed ritual, which I had yet to learn, came back out in a bathrobe, asked me to avert my eyes, and jumped into bed. She started shivering, and after it subsided, looked at me, her eyes red.

“Emily — Mom? I love you.”

I bent down, brushed her hair out of her face and kissed her.

“I love you too, Carrie; get some sleep.”

#

The day before we were due to fly back to DC, we went through the Ortiz place, once with the Calliope family, filling two large suitcases that had been Mrs. Ortiz’s with Carrie’s clothes and stuffed animals and other keepsakes she wanted to take home with us. I mostly let her do this with me in the background; Rachel Calliope’s sister, Lily, and Carrie’s other good friend Petra were her helpers, allowing her and Rachel the space to say goodbye to Petra; I hated that I felt good that at least both Carrie and Rachel had to say goodbye, making me feel insensitive to Petra’s plight.

“So,” Bevin Calliope said to me, as we did our own wandering around the house, “I’m Bevin; I understand you already met my George and younger kiddo.”

“Yes, I did. Emily Prentiss.”

“So you’re taking care of Carrie.”

“Yes.”

“Congrats.”

“Thank you. So where in DC will you be living?”

“We just bought a townhouse on 356 15th Street NE.”

“Oh wow, we’re practically neighbors; Carrie and I are on North Carolina Ave NE; it’s an easy walk.”

“Great; you can help us get oriented.”

“Absolutely. When do you move in?”

“We’re flying over tomorrow on Frontier flight 477.”

“Oh wow, we are as well.”

“Excellent. I’m still trying to figure out where Rachel will go to school.”

“Eastern High is closest to where we live; I want to enroll Carrie there.”

“I’ll have to look into it.”

“I’m really happy that Rachel gets to stay with Carrie; she really doesn’t have a lot of good friends, and this might make the transition easier on her.”

“It was a very fortuitous chance, wasn’t it?”

“Yes it was.”

“I’m looking forward to having your family as my friends too.”


	3. Sanderson

 

An older pickup truck, a 1980 Ford, came speeding into Sanderson, Texas, along route 90, kicking up an almighty dust storm behind it. The driver had hip hop blaring from the ratty old speakers that could barely keep up with the volume demands he put on them. He then screeched to a halt in front of an old gas station that had been rebranded ‘Sanderson Tire and Feed’. As the dust settled down, he leaned on his horn and got out.

The driver was a big man, with dark skin, powerful muscles and a no-fucks attitude. He was known as El Cuchillo, “The Knife”, for his love of using that as his main weapon against anyone who stood in his way. El Cuchillo was a strangely nice man, as long as you worked for him, had a proven record of devoted service to the cause, and for the right amount of pesos, El Cuchillo would happily smuggle your deepest desire across the border. He smiled as a lanky attendant approached the truck.

“Hola, amigo,” Cuchillo said, “Can I see the boss? I have his delivery.”

“Wait here, amigo,” the attendant said, slinking back into the desolate office.

Well, if one was honest, the whole town was desolate; the population was tiny, aging, and growing ever smaller with each passing year, making it an enviable place if your business was drugs. There were hardly any businesses left along West Oak Street, the main thoroughfare, apart from a small cafe and the Tire and Feed store, as well as a few straggling, struggling convienience stores out the other end of town.

A young man followed the attendant, also a young man, and warily eyed El Cuchillo. He he could have been a handsome man, but carried himself in a slinky manner, his demeanor as wary as his eyes.

“You have the delivery?”

“Si, boss.”

“Let me see.”

“In the truck.”

“You idiot, Mack, I told you to not do it so obviously again!” Mack was a common additional nickname that El Cuchillo was given by many an associate.

“No, boss, this represents my finest smuggling yet. I am worth every cent I charge.”

“Show me.”

El Cuchillo walked the boss over to his truck, picked up a burlap feed sack from the back of the truck, put it on the ground, grabbed a hunter’s knife from his belt, hacked open the burlap, and removed two layers of straw to reveal several bottles of Sudafed. The boss shook his head.

“That would have never passed a dog, Mack, and you know it. I’ll take off 5% from your total for your lack of cleverness. Now, how much is it in all?”

“76 pounds of untraceable sudafed,” Cuchillo replied.

“I’ll take the truck from here, and you will leave in one of my other cars. Do not argue. Cam!”

“Sir?” the attendant said meekly, approaching the men.

“Take Mack’s truck to the lockup, then bring him back one of the cars from the garage while Mack and I do business.”

“Of course, boss.”

The boss watched the truck disappear behind the gas station complex, and then beckoned El Cuchillo to follow him into the office. Inside it was damp, dark, and smelled faintly of mold. The boss walked over to the cash register, pulled out a grimy old calculator, hemmed and hawed and finally reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a checkbook.

“Oh no, no, no, amigo,” Cuchillo said, clucking his toung disapprovingly, “cash up front and in full; we agreed.”

“Did we? I don’t recall that happening.”

“Si, amigo.”

“You aren’t one of my men, and you aren’t one of my better smugglers; why should I negotiate with you?”

“Amigo, it is very bad business to withhold on a promise; the ones I work for, who up until now, happily contracted with you, will not take kindly to this. Cash. Now.”

“I will not negotiate with you, Mack.” He reached into another desk drawer, brought out a revolver, cocked it, and pointed it straight at El Cucillo’s temple. “Am I being perfectly clear?”

The calm, almost reasonable tone he used as he threatned Cuchillo would likely have frozen the blood of a mere mortal, but El Cucillo only laughed.

“Oh amigo, you fucking gringos are all the fucking same. You take what we in the cartels have spent our years perfecting, come down and get our secrets, and then undercut our monopolies, taking all the business for yourself. Fine. Cut me a fucking check, gringo, but you are no longer my amigo; from here on out, I am your rival, Lance.”

Charles Lucas Lance gave El Cuchillo a frigid glare.

“Are you threatening me?”

“Si, gringo.”

“That will be your last mistake, I promise you.” He wrote out the check and handed it to Cuchillo. The smuggler’s face went red and contored with rage.

“This is not a fair payment!”

“Do I need to remind you?” Lance pointed the revolver at El Cuchillo’s chest. “Get the fuck out of here and you and your bosses will be hearing from me in a few weeks or so, whatever you feel so juiced to threaten me with otherwise. I rule your cartel, Mack. Scram.”

 

#

 

Houston, Texas

 

Nicholas Osment Davidson looked at the bare walls of his old office; he had been a DEA agent for almost ten years, three of them in command of the Southern Texas region office, from his very humble beginnings in Presidio, Texas and his fifteen years there, many of them as Sherriff of the town, and now, he was almost completely packed to head to DC to take up a position as an executive assistant to the DEA director. He was going places. So why did he feel empty, like he wasn’t living every dream he had cherished since he was young and watching meth and its effects on the rise in rural Texas?

“I’ll miss you, Nick,” his second in command, Margaret Steele said sadly.

“I’ll miss you too, Maggie,” Davidson said, “but this place will flourish under your leadership; of that I have no doubt.”

“I hope so, Nick.”

“You know your stuff, Maggie. I have every faith in you.”

“I hope it’s not misplaced.”

“It isn’t.”

“Mr. Davidson?” a DEA handler, a young woman with black hair with red highlights, one of his many assistants called, “the car is ready to take you to the airport. We’re all set to send your office stuff by FedEx; it should arrive a day later.”

“All right, thanks, Zoey.”

Davidson turned to face Maggie again. They stared for a long moment at each other; they weren’t in love, but that woman had had his back plenty of times, and was a fearless, smart, capable agent, maybe the one he had the most respect for in all the years he had worked in law enforcement.

“Good luck, Maggie. Call me if you need anything.”

“Likewise, Nick. Stay in touch.”

“I will. Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

 


	4. Settling in and Returning to Work

  
Settling in and returning to work

The morning after we arrived back in DC, Carrie woke up grumpy, tense and any communication between us was terse and ineloquent. I knew why, of course, but it was…what was it? I decided I needed to call JJ, if she and the team weren’t busy on a case.

“Emily?” I noted her return to calling me by name.

“Yeah?”

“Can I go to Rachel’s place? Help her and her family move in a bit?”

“Of course. Do you want to stay for dinner or the night?”

“I don’t know,” she said shortly.

“Here, take this,” I gave her my cell phone, “and call me when you know; if Hotch or anyone on the team calls me, redirect them to the landline phone okay? Number’s in my contacts.”

“Okay. Okay.” Carrie said, trying not to snap at me.

“Have fun then,” I said, trying to not to openly worry.

Carrie nodded, and left. She walked up North Carolina to 15th Street and rang the bell.

“Hello Carrie!” George Calliope said warmly.

“Is this a bad time? I can come back later,” Carrie said, suddenly feeling a rush of emotions.

“No, no, not at all,” George said cheerily, “come on in; we could always use another pair of hands.”

“Thank you,” Carrie said, entering.

“Carrie? Oh my god, Carrie Ortiz?!”

“Hi, Lily.”

Rachel Calliope’s older sister Lily was a gorgeous 19 year old with hair that blurred the lines between auburn and ginger, a tall, lean body, due to her working part time as a fitness instructor at a Crossfit Gym to help pay her way through Georgetown.

“I heard the news from Rach,” Lily Calliope said, “oh, Carrie, sweetie, I am so, so sorry.”

“Thanks, Lil. You know, this place really is a lot like Emily — I mean, Mom’s house.” She tried to not pay too much attention to Lily’s concerned look; “the layout is almost identical.”

“Bet it’s a bit more fancy than this,” Bevin Calliope said, entering the room. “Miss Prentiss certainly didn’t shy away from showing off her money.”

“What do you mean?” Carrie asked.

“I mean, did you see how she was dressed when we were not at the cemetery?”

“Her job requires she dress like that,” Carrie said frowning. “I think she has more suits than everyday casual wear.”

“Right. Well…anyway, Lily made some lemonade; would you like a glass hon?”

“Yes please.”

Bevin showed Lily into their kitchen, poured her a tall glass of lemonade and sat down with her as she drank, just making general chat, and shortly after that, Carrie adjourned to the room Rachel had claimed and helped her bff set it up, although setting up the room took a backseat to chatting and goofing off, doing silly things, which Carrie appreciated, still feeling like she was reeling from her losses. Finally, they had gotten everything mostly unpacked, and came downstairs to the living room and sat down. Presently, Bevin joined Carrie on the couch.

“So, how are things?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you excited to start your new school?”

“I guess.”

“And what do you think you’ll do for extracurriculars?”

“I don’t know; I thought I would ask for Emily’s help in that.”

Bevin frowned. For as long as she had known Carrie, she had been a lover of track, Choir and a little bit of swimming and soccer. Why would she need or want Miss Prentiss’s input?

“Yes, about that,” Bevin said, “how is all that going?”

“What do you mean?” Bevin did not miss the wariness that had come to Carrie’s voice.

“I mean, do you like it? Do you like Miss Prentiss?”

“Yes, I like Emily a lot; she tries too hard, moves too fast sometimes, and doesn’t always make me feel like she respects Mom, but she’s sweet, and I’d rather be with her than Uncle Raul. Danny used to talk about the things that Uncle made him feel. I think he scared Danny.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“And let’s face it,” Carrie said sadly, “I’m not mature enough to be on my own.”

“But why go live with a stranger?”

“Who else would have taken me? You?”

“I would have taken you in for a little while until we could have found a permanent living situation for you.”

“So you wouldn’t have adopted me outright, even though you would have been a logical next step after Uncle Raul; I mean, we lived together almost our whole lives.”

Bevin nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” As hard as she tried to suppress it, a bit of anger showed, unbidden. “Then why wouldn’t you take me in? I would have liked to have had sisters.”

“I just didn’t think we could afford you.”

“So it’s about the money?”

“No, goodness no; you aren’t just a sum to me, hon!”

“Then why,” Carrie said, breathing deeply, “do you care so much about Emily? She is the only one who did want to take me in, and yeah, when she helped guide me through the investigation of mom, Dad and Danny’s murders, you should have seen her; she was kind, warm, attentive and made me feel like it was okay to be frightened. Yeah, I might have fallen a bit in love with her; no one else comforted me that night!” She blushed; her voice had gone up in volume.

Bevin took a long pause, biting her lip. Finally, she said: “I care because Miss Prentiss is not your mother, honey; Luisa is. Furthermore, who will be your father if you are so insistent on replacing them?”

“I’m not replacing them! I love my parents more than I can say and I hurt constantly because of that! And my brother was my best friend!”

“I didn’t mean it like —”

“I think I want to go home now.”

“I’ll walk you,” George said. A few minutes after they left the house, he added, “you know she means well, right?”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Carrie said, near tears, “no one seems happy for me, except for Emily; she’s so happy about it, which in and of itself feels weird, and even Emily’s mom didn’t seem to like me that much, or Emily.”

“I’m happy for you, Carrie, and so is Rach, Lily and Bevin, even if she…”

“Concern trolls?”

“Well, yes; here you are. Please don’t cold shoulder us, okay?”

Carrie nodded, walked to the door, and rang the bell.

“I have got to remember to get you a spare key,” I said laughing, seeing her on the doorstep; then I got a look at her face. “Carrie, are you all right?”

“Not now, Mom,” Carrie said, looking at the floor, “I’ll be in my room.” I watched concernedly as she all but ran up the stairs into her room and slammed both the hall door and the door that connected to my room.

“Is everything okay?” JJ asked, coming into the entry hall, looking concerned, but then, both of us could hear Carrie’s sobs. “Never mind. You should check on her, Emily.”

“I will in a minute, but I think she needs some time to herself.”

Poor kid; JJ and I removed to the dining room, and sat down and talked quietly for a bit. After a moment, I noticed Carrie’s sobs receding.

“I’m going to go check on her now,” I said; JJ nodded, as I started climbing the stairs. “Carrie? It’s Emily, can I come in?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Are you all right?” I asked. She shrugged.

“I don’t know, I’m so confused. I went over to Rach’s house, and her mom was all, like, superior about everything; I asked her if she would have considered taking me in, like, you know, if you hadn’t come along and Uncle Raul still refused to take me, and she said she would have taken me in temporarily, but not permanently, and…” Carrie gulped “she said some pretty mean things about you; she said you weren’t my mom, and couldn’t be my mom….”

I felt a rush of emotion, mostly sadness; Bevin was right. Wasn’t she? I turned away from Carrie to hide the tears that threatened, but took her hand.

“I mean, she’s right, though, isn’t she?” I asked, somewhat hypothetically.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, your mother knew so much about you, she knew you since your first breath, hell even before you took that breath; she knows all of your likes, your dislikes, your habits, things you do, quirks; and I bet you she could know what you were feeling by just looking at your face; I have to learn all of this, and it may never come organically or authentically.” I sighed. “My mother knows everything about me, even when we don’t always get along.”

“But you know things about me? Right?”

I turned to face her, frowning slightly. “If you mean what I think you mean; what I do professionally, then yes, I can make a profile based on what I observe about your behavior and your surroundings, but Carrie, that’s not the sort of knowledge that would benefit me as a parent, nor give either of us any sort of foundation for creating a parent-child relationship.”

“I don’t care,” Carrie said, “will you tell me what you can see here? Please?”

“Well…all right,” I said; I stood up, looked around the room and the dresser where she had placed pictures on her bedside table.  
“What I get from these pictures,” I said slowly, “is that your parents and brother mean the world to you; you look at their pictures every night before you go to bed and every morning when you wake, and the positioning of this photo of me says that you desperately want to see me as an equal to your birth parents, but aren’t quite comfortable doing so just yet; every time you call me Mom, you frantically analyze the feelings it evokes, probably a lot of sadness, confusion shame, and maybe positive feelings too, like excitement and daring?

“The fact that you haven’t yet personalized your room, even though you’ve unpacked everything we brought back from Colorado says you aren’t completely sure of where and how you’ll fit in here, or even if you will retain your sense of identity from before, or if you’ll reinvent yourself. That you have my personal album here, and it’s open — I’m not angry, by the way — says you are attempting, in turn, to profile me; understand me, get a feeling for who I used to be. Did you see that picture of me in the eighties?”

Carrie grinned, and began giggling. “Very hair metal,” she said.

“Hey! I was Goth, I’ll have you know!”

“That was amazing, by the way,” Carrie said, but tears had formed in her eyes.

“Thank you,” I said, sitting back down beside her, “now tell me: what’s bothering you?”

“I…it’s selfish….”

“I doubt it, but either way, it doesn’t matter.”

“I just wish Bevin was happy for me; for us, but I don’t think she likes you, and your mom doesn’t like me.”

“I’m so sorry about Mom,” I said, looking down, “she and I have never been close; especially when I was your age, I really resented her for moving me around the world so much, and not giving me the opportunity to really develop close friendships. I’ve been able to make up for it in my adulthood though; speaking of which, once you’re ready to come down, do you want to meet my friend JJ? She’s really nice and all that.”

“Yeah. I’ll be down in a moment.”

“Okay. Carrie?”

“Yeah?”

“I know it might not help, but I’m very happy to have you as part of my family, and I think Mom and Bevin will eventually come around to the idea once they get used to it all; once we get used to it all.”

“You think they’ll come around?”

“Yes, I do.”

“All right. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Take your time; come down when you’re ready; I think I’ll make the three of us dinner! Hey, are you allergic to anything?”

“Um, shellfish I think.”

“Well that’s okay, I’m not a big fan of them anyway…all right, I’m going back downstairs. Come down when you’re ready.”

I returned to the kitchen to find that JJ had already raided my fridge and was starting on dinner.

“You didn’t have to,” I said laughing, “I was just about to cook something.”

“Yeah, well your chicken was getting dangerously close to its expiration date, so I thought I would make one of my mother’s standbys.”

“As long as there’s no shellfish; Carrie says she’s allergic.”

“No shellfish.”

“Fine, now I need to help. Does this go well with rice?”

“Already done that,” JJ said, and this time she laughed, nodding at a simmering pot. For some reason, her laugh made me shiver. I didn’t hear it much at work, and so…

“So what can I do, then?” I asked.

“Salad and an appetizer?”

“Okay,” I said.

Carrie ended up coming down just about exactly when the food was ready, and a part of me wondered if her stomach as much as anything brought her downstairs. I was setting the table when she came in, lighting some candles.

“It smells good, Mom,” she said quietly.

“Thank JJ; she did it all,” I replied, sounding faintly embarrassed, “hey, why don’t you go see if you can help her bring it in here?”

“Okay.”

I watched her enter the kitchen, and introduce herself to JJ, even though they had already sort-of met during the case, begin to chat with her, and by the expressions they both wore, seemed to get along well with each other, and my heart felt like it had expanded. Plus, I was excited; I rarely ate with anyone, living alone; in fact, I rarely ate at home.  
As we ate, JJ and Carrie continued talking and getting to know each other, and I mostly stayed silent and enjoyed listening to them, watching them, enjoying their presence.

#

The last few days of my time off I used to run around and try and put the final pieces of the puzzle together, figure out who would be able to help me take care of Carrie, especially when it came to when I was away on work which frustratingly ruled out my first choice, JJ, because if I was away on work, so would she. Reid, I also thought would be fun to introduce to Carrie, but there again, if he bonded well with her, he was also one of the team. I knew what Hotch would say if I approached him; his son, Jack, he would say still had his mother to look after him. There was no question that was so difficult to plan for. Really, all that was left was to approach the Calliope family. I figured that George would eagerly and happily be sure to be there for Carrie when I could not, but after what Carrie told me about Bevin’s reaction, I couldn’t be as sure about her. When I finally asked her, she was amenable to the idea, even though I could tell she wasn’t happy about it; I think the fact that I would need to lean on them so much was, in her mind, further proof that I was in over my head. But then, maybe for whatever reason, she just didn’t like me.

Enrolling Carrie in Eastern High was not as much of a headache as I thought. Indeed, the rockiest part was getting her former school, the similarly named East High School to release her records to me and to Eastern High since I was a few hours and a few interviews short of being considered Carrie’s guardian, but a little persuasion — I’m good at that, if I may brag a little — they released her information, and Eastern was happy to take her on for the next year, although the Eastern staff said it was lucky that all this happened in the summer, as it was harder for them to accept prospective students halfway into the term. I bristled at the use of the term lucky; I had been honest with them on why Carrie was in my care at all, and lucky would have been the last word I would have used. But I could tell that Carrie was happy to be back doing what she loved, although she was disappointed that the choral program at Eastern was less robust than it had been at East, and the music teacher, Mr. St. John Mendel said he was planning on improving and adding other groups, like the women’s ensemble which Carrie had been a star on when she was at East. Mrs. Oliver, the girls swimming coach was another person with whom Carrie developed an almost immediate rapport with; all in all I was happy that it looked like she would be able to transition with plenty of support, and both she and Rachel enrolled in Soccer.

The home visits were a little flustering, not because I thought that there would be anything in the house itself that would raise any flags for the DCS, but the nature of my job would, and the first couple I was completely on edge, sure that if I was completely honest, they would take Carrie away from me and place her with a two-parent family with stable 9-5 jobs; before I had even had time to consider my life with a child, something I may or may not have secretly wanted since I was fifteen, I would not be declared fit. Judge Henry Osgood, a classmate of the judge I had consulted with in Denver, had assigned Olivia Moore as Carrie’s caseworker. She was stern but fair.

“Ms. Prentiss, I am almost ready to deliver my final assessment on your stability and ability to be Miss Ortiz’s permanent guardian, and I have been following you for a while now, and I’m mostly impressed. We talked last time I was here about your plans for enrolling Miss Ortiz in school and setting up a support system for her. How is that going?”

“Well, I managed to get her enrolled in Eastern High, which is only a four and a half blocks from here, so easily walkable if she wants, or I can drive her or she can go on the bus, whatever she prefers.”

“Okay. Extracurriculars?”

“All her favorites: choir, soccer and swimming, at least for now.”

“Okay. Supports for her?”

“Her best friend has also enrolled in Eastern, and she and her swim coach seem to get along.”

“Okay. So, how about supports for yourself?”

Here goes nothing.

“I’m still firming that up,” I said honestly, “most of my nearest and dearest are my coworkers.”

“In other words, no one who could watch Miss Ortiz while you’re away? I need not remind you that your work makes parenting very difficult, and Miss Ortiz’s best interests should be all our priorities.”

“It is my priority,” I said, a bit too defensively, feeling sweat prick under my arms. “Carrie’s friend’s family will watch her while I’m at work.”

“How do you plan to support Miss Ortiz in her endeavors?”

“I’ll be there for every possible concert, track meet, swim competition, whatever, that I can make.”

“I can’t imagine that will be very many. I need not remind you that Miss Ortiz will need you, especially now in the beginning.”

“I am trying,” I said, belaying a bit of impatience, “and my mother I will hopefully be able to lean on a bit.”

“Very well.”

“Please don’t take her away from me.”

“I am bound to focus on what is best for Carrie,” Moore said, “and just four days ago, a lovely young lesbian couple came in looking to foster and possibly adopt a child, and expressed interest in Miss Ortiz, and both mothers work steady jobs that could easily be made to accommodate Miss Ortiz’s various needs.”

I felt tears pool in my eyes. Dammit!

Moore looked at me, studied me, including the tears threatening to fall. “Well,” she said finally, “I can see you care for her a lot, and that counts for something, plus, as we asked of you, we got Carrie’s statement, and she has expressed a desire to stay with you. Ultimately, the decision is in the hands of Judge Osgood.”

“What are my chances?”

“They are very good once you figure out how you can ensure that Carrie will always be safe and loved and that you can be her strongest supporter. Ms. Prentiss, I have a job and standards to uphold. I want you to be successfully appointed her guardian as you do, I just have to make sure she will not face abuse in this household. If the judge believes that you meet these standards, you will be granted custody. I have all my paperwork ready to submit to the judge. We’ll be in touch about your final court date. Have a good day, Ms. Prentiss.”

 

 

There’s a bar I really like, across the street from the FBI Headquarters called The Hangout at 801 Pennsylvania Ave., “A Capitol Beer”, popularly known as simply 801 Penn, owned and managed by David Brewer and his husband, renowned LA Restaurateur Harry Hamlin, who also had upscale pubs in New York and LA called Harry and David’s; 801 Penn, on the other hand, while not being blue collar, were not nearly as upper-crust as either the New York or LA places that David and Harry owned, and David’s son from a previous marriage, Cal Baker-Ross, managed the kitchen, cooking simplified versions of Harry Hamlin’s popular restaurants while his father served the beers, and his half-sister Cami managed the front of the house. Cami and I were good friends, having both gone to Yale together, although we majored in very different things, but Cami was also the uncredited brains behind some of 801 Penn’s most popular theme nights, including Capitol Trivia, Bobbing for Republicans, and my personal favorite, Thursday Night Blues, where Cami scouted local blues musicians and invited them to play sets for an evening of live music from about 7:30 until 11:00, usually featuring about three or four bands a night, depending on the band’s adherence to the setlist guidelines. A band called The Soul Benders, from Maine, was exceptionally popular. 801 Penn was very popular amongst the college crowds, “Bobbing for Republicans” was probably the most popular event with the college crowd, and Nats games attracted the most broad range of fans.

That day, exhausted by the tension and stress of whether or not I would be given custody of Carrie, I sent her over to JJ’s apartment for the night and entered 801 Penn. It was popular not just with college students, although throngs of them could be found almost any night, thanks to Harry Hamlin’s reasonable prices, but also with a lot of law enforcement, mainly FBI, DOJ, and others, even some rank-and-file DC Police officers, although a lot of the ones I was friends with tended to favor cafes and bars closer to their home base stations around the city.

“Evening, Em!” Cami Baker-Hamlin, the only child of the Baker-Hamlin marriage, born by David’s sperm to a surrogate mother, greeted me, hanging out at the hostess station like she often does, “you here for the blues night?”

“You bet,” I said.

“You’re in for a treat, we have someone completely new tonight, Nick and the Whiskey Dogs are opening tonight. Here on your own?”

“Yeah.”

“You sound exhausted.”

“I am; I’m in the middle of adopting my…my daughter.” I had not said it out loud to anyone who didn’t have the name Prentiss, Hotchner or Jareau yet, although I think the rest of the BAU as good as knows.

“Oh my God, Emily! You have to tell me all about it! In the meantime, take a seat at the bar and have a drink and some food on the house. I’ll let Daddy know! Oh my god, congrats!”

“Thanks, Cami,” I said, and moved towards the bar and ordered a Guinness and Bread-and-Butter Haddock, my favorite, a greasy, perfectly crisp and moist spiced and breaded filet of haddock that is making my mouth water, just thinking of it.

Shortly after my haddock arrived, the band, a drummer, bassist and singer-guitarist took the stage, set up and checked in, before launching a four song set that had two modernized arrangements of Robert Johnson songs, a Muddy Waters song and a Howlin’ Wolf cover. I thoroughly enjoyed the set, and afterward, the singer approached the bar.

“I don’t suppose the musician could get one on the house?”

“Of course,” the bartender said, “what’ll you have?”

“Guinness please. Oh, hi there pretty lady,” he added, catching my eye, “what’re you doing here?”

“Listening to good blues music,” I replied.

“Ah. Did you like it? We just started playing together last week; the boys just moved from Texas. I’m Nicholas Davidson, by the way; call me Nick.”

“Agent Emily Prentiss.”

“Agent?”

“FBI.”

“Oh cool; Dan, Mike and I are DEA; actually, I just moved here from Houston to take a promotion, and work for the director of the DEA right here at the DOJ."

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“So if you’re DEA, why play music?”

Davidson shrugged. “We all need our hobbies and pastimes to unwind, right? Especially if we work in the field.” I nodded. “Well, mine’s playing the blues.”

“And mine’s coming to a bar, drinking Guinness and listening to it,” I said.

“Cheers,” Davidson said, and we clinked our glasses together.

“You know,” he said, “I never expected my first show to also mean that I share the world’s best beer and a chat with a sexy woman.”

“You don’t mean that?”

“Course I do; you’re hot.”

I smiled. “Do you think so?”

“Emily? Emily? Hey Emily!” I looked over to where my name was being called and smiled even more. “Hey, I didn’t expect to find you here; oh and who are you?”

“Penelope, this is Nicholas Davidson, Nick, this is Penelope Garcia, one of my coworkers.”

“A pleasure,” Davidson said.

“Likewise,” Garcia responded. “So Emily, when are you coming back to work?”

“Probably tomorrow, assuming I can get everything in order.”

“Good,” Garcia said. “We’ve missed you!”


	5. First Day Back

  
First Day Back

I stepped out of the elevators and into the lobby of the BAU offices on the 6th floor of the FBI Academy building in Quantico, VA. I smiled as I entered, the group hanging around the desks that belong to Reid and I, as per usual. Morgan was the first to notice me, and smiled and came over.

“So,” he said, “how’s it all going?”

“When will you know more?” Reid asked, turning at the sound Morgan’s voice and not giving me a chance to answer him.

“We’ll see,” I said somewhat sadly, “all I need now is for the judge to review the case manager’s paperwork, make a decision and give us a court date. And then we wait and see if I’m granted custody or not.”

“You don’t sound very happy, Emily,” JJ said.

“I…no, you’ll think I’m selfish.”

“Say it anyway.”

“I just…I wish my mother and Carrie’s friends had reacted a bit more positively to this; I feel like I’m the only one who’s excited for this, and Carrie’s trying hard to be.”

JJ nodded. “I’m sorry, Em, that must be hard.”

“A bit,” I said, “and it doesn’t help me feel optimistic about what is to come.”

“I don’t think you need to worry too much,” Reid said, “statistically, women, even single women are the most likely to be awarded custody of a dependent minor.”

“Even though I don’t have any relation to her?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Guys,” Hotch called, “we need to get started.”

As the team walked towards the conference room, they all made sure to highlight that they were, in fact, very excited for me, which made me feel a little better. As per usual, I sat down beside Morgan and Reid.

“Okay,” JJ began, “we’ve gotten a call from Lt. Bill Boyd of the Cincinnati police to help on a case of what appears to be serial kills on the University of Cincinnati campus; earlier this week, on Sunday, Mary Donaghue, Saoirse Dunn and August Olafsson were taken in the early morning to the University Medical center; Miss Donaghue was pronounced dead on arrival, Mr. Olafsson died a few hours later from sustained injuries, and both were fatally shot, and rushed to the hospital by the unsub.”

“Miss Dunn?” Hotch asked.

“For reasons unknown to local police, she was not shot fatally, but she is in critical condition and has a surgery scheduled for later today.”

“What do we know about the victims?”

“All three of them were outstanding students, Mr. Olafsson and Miss Donaghue were both International Studies majors and Miss Dunn was studying to become a surgeon herself.”

“All right, so how do we think this is a serial killer, apart from the fact there were three victims?” Rossi asked.

“Well, this is where it gets interesting,” JJ said, “exactly one month ago, and I mean exactly one month ago, three other students were admitted to the hospital from identical wounds; two died, one survived: Sean Lachlan, Brendan Collins and Aneesa Barakat; Collins survived, Lachlan and Barakat did not. Barakat was born in Mosul to Iraqi Kurdish parents and had been an honors exchange student, a good friend of Collins, who was an Arabic Studies major, although Barakat herself was a music major. Lachlan was three credits short of enrolling in medical school.”

“I see several patterns emerging,” I said.

“At least two of the students killed by this unsub were in international-related majors and at least one in a healthcare major,” Reid said nodding, expounding on my theory, “and four of the six victims have Celtic names, the other two are themselves international.”

“One Dane and one Kurd.” JJ nodded.

“Why do we believe that the unsub was the one to rush them to the hospital?” Asked Morgan

“In both cases, 911 was not called, and the victims were transported in a personal car; additionally, the doctors that Cincinnati PD already interviewed said that the wounds were fresh; one of Miss Dunn’s professors suggested that they were shot less than an hour before arriving at the hospital.”

“How could you get from point A to point B so quickly?” I asked hypothetically.

“Why is he doing it like this?” Reid further mused, “is this a sign of remorse?”

“We can talk more on the plane,” Hotch said, “wheels up in fifteen.”

I ducked into Gideon’s old office (the phone had not yet been disconnected) for a quick private call and dialed the Calliope’s home and asked George if they could be sure to pick up Carrie from school and watch her until I got back. Hugely apologetically, George told me that he, Rachel and Bevin were going out to Minnesota to visit her parents and that they would be gone for the weekend, and that Lily was too busy. I paled a bit, then hastily dialed the school and asked if I could talk to Mrs. Oliver the swim coach and repeated my request to her, who said that she could watch her for a few hours after school, but if I was going to be gone more than a day, I would have to find someone else.

I sighed.

“Hey Prentiss, you okay?” Morgan said, “come on, everyone’s waiting.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I need to make one more call.”

“I’ll tell Hotch to wait,” Morgan said, nodding. “I suppose we’re going to have to get used to this.”

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it, and with shaky hands, made my last call, to my mother.

As soon as the captain of the plane said we were at a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet, we all unbuckled, pulled out our folders on the case and began to talk shop.

“This is another one of those unsubs,” Reid said, shaking his head, “can’t decide if he’s organized or disorganized. The meticulous choosing of a very specific set of victims just screams stalking - very organized behavior; but then you look at the variations of execution from victim to victim; Miss Dunn, the survivor, only had two gunshot wounds, neither of them anywhere near fatal organs or arteries, whereas Miss Donaghue and Mr. Olafsson were shot five times and seven times respectively, almost all shots near fatal areas: the chest, the head, the upper thigh — disorganized and possibly hesitant; he doesn’t know where to shoot.”

“We also need to figure out what significance the victims’ area of study had; what did they mean to the unsub?” Hotch mused.

“Also pay attention to another pattern emerging,” I said, “in both groups of victims, two of the three victims were the same gender: first group — two males, one female; second group — two females, one male.”

“Hello, my lovelies,” Garcia’s chipper voice came over the laptop via Skype, “as per the Hotch of all Hotches — sorry, Sir” she said, catching Hotch’s glare that concealed his amusement “as per the boss, I took a quick search at the victims backgrounds, and there is a slight connection: Mary Donaghue and August Olafsson were a couple; had been before starting their studies: the Donaghue parents were dual citizens — Ireland and Denmark — and they had lived for most of Mary’s childhood in Aarhus, Denmark, the home city of the Olafsson family, and Mary and August grew up together, and then both families relocated to Cincinnati, mostly for their children’s studies, but both fathers, artists, had also gotten jobs in museums around town.”

“Garcia, any connection between Mary and Saoirse?”

“They were like the bestest of BFFs,” Garcia said, “did everything together, including tease August. They loved each other, but there was tension there too — apparently, Mary swore Saoirse was a lesbian and loved her as more than a sister, but that was never confirmed.”

“Garcia, what about the other three victims?” Hotch asked.

“Well now we enter the world of heartbreak,” Garcia said, her voice and whole posture changing, “Emily, you may want to cover your ears.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Aneesa Barakat’s parents were executed in Baghdad as political dissidents, and she was set to become Brendan Collins’s adoptive sister.”

“Any connection between Brendan and Sean Lachlan?” Morgan asked.

“Yes indeed, and it further connects the two victim groups; both Brendan and Sean’s mothers were Norwegian who moved to Scotland where they met their respective sons’ fathers.”

“Good work, Garcia; send us copies of all this.”

“Done and done. Oracle PG Out!”

“So we have deep, deep connections in all the groups — friendship, love, shared culture.” Morgan summed up.

“Not to mention that Scotland, Wales, Ireland and most of Scandinavia are areas where the Celtic culture is very much a part of the cultural identity,” said Reid.

“All right;” Hotch said, “when we land, let’s split up: JJ, you and Prentiss talk with Saoirse Dunn and her parents, Reid and Morgan go to the morgue and I will set up at the police station.”

One of Boyd’s assistants met us where we got off at the Delta Private Jets hangar and showed us to where there were two FBI SUVs as per normal, which had, according to the assistant, come down from Columbus for our arrival. Hotch and Reid got in one with the police, JJ, Morgan and I in the other, and followed him to the university police station. Boyd met us there.

“Lieutenant Bill Boyd, I’m the detective in charge of this case, thank you for coming,” he said, approaching Hotch with his hands outstretched.

“I’m Agent Aaron Hotchner, this is my team, Agents Morgan, Prentiss, Jareau and Dr. Reid.” We all shook hands with Boyd except for Reid, who merely waved; he was a little germaphobic, I guess.

“We’ve got you set up in the University Police station, since that’s closest.”

“Thank you. I will get started in here, see what I can learn from your files; can you have one of your men take Agents Reid and Morgan to the morgue to examine the bodies and cross-reference with your ME and give directions for Agent Prentiss to the hospital where Miss Dunn is being taken care of?”

“Certainly, but they’re all on the same campus: Take Correy to Jefferson, follow that until it becomes Vine, and then Goodman Drive will be to your right and that’ll throw you right into the middle of campus.”

“Thank you,” Hotch said, “get going, guys and keep in touch.”

We dropped Reid and Morgan at the coroner’s office and then JJ and I drove on until we found the parking garage, and then went in to the hospital and stopped at the main desk.

“I’m Agent Prentiss, this is Agent Jareau,” I said, quickly flashing the secretary my badge, “we’re looking for Saoirse Dunn?”

“She is recovering in the SICU; Critical Care Pavilion, floor two; take the P elevators.”

“Thank you.”

We strolled around until we finally found the correct area and a nurse led us into her room.

“Be gentle with her, she’s been through an extremely invasive surgery; a bullet impacted her chest muscles.”

“We will,” I promised. She seemed young and fragile as we entered; she was awake and terrified, and I had to remind myself she was at least five years older than Carrie; the info that Garcia had sent over to us showed her as being a sophomore.

“Saoirse Dunn? My name is Emily Prentiss and this is my friend Jennifer Jareau, and we’re from the FBI; can we ask you some questions?”

She shrugged. I grinned.

“Just like my daughter,” I said playfully, “why use words at all, eh?”

Saoirse grinned back — a little bit. “How old is she?” Saoirse asked.

“Fifteen,” I said.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Mrs. Prentiss —”

“Just Emily, please —”

“But you don’t look old enough to have a teenage daughter.”

“I adopted her.”

“Oh.”

“Saoirse, can you tell us anything about what happened?”

“I can’t remember,” she answered.

“Can you remember anything?”

“I just remember I’d had a lecture at Cincinnati Children’s about trauma surgery, since that’s what I want to become, and I was walking back to campus with Mary, having our usual argument about me being gay, and we ran into Mary’s boyfriend, August, and we all agreed to go eat something. Then I remember someone stepping out from the shadows, and then I don’t remember anything after that.”

“Did you get a look at whoever attacked you?”

“No.”

“Do you know anyone, a student perhaps, who would wish ill upon you or your friends?”

“No.”

“That’s enough; good afternoon, I’m Dr. Evan Fahey, I’m Miss Dunn’s physician, and I must ask you to let my patient get her rest.”

JJ said something to the effect of that we would not be much longer and then we would leave, but my attention was drawn to Saoirse’s reaction; she had looked scared, pained as Dr. Fahey walked in and she had taken my hand and gripped it hard. She was clearly frightened, and I made a note of it.

“Honey, are your parents coming?” Saoirse nodded.

“Her mother has been notified,” Dr. Fahey said.

“Come on, JJ, let’s give her some space,” I said, shooing JJ out. Once we were safely outside of Saoirse’s room, I turned to her.

“Did you see how she reacted to the doctor entering?”

“Yeah; what’re you thinking, Emily?”

“Could he be our unsub?”

A few moments later, a woman who was a decidedly older version of Saoirse walked into the room.

“Hello,” she said, “I’m Tina Dunn, I saw you in with my daughter?”

“Agent Prentiss; this is Agent Jareau; we’re from the FBI.”

“Why were you talking to my daughter?”

“We’re trying to get a picture of what’s going on,” I answered.

“I see; well, I don’t know what Saoirse could have said that was helpful, but I need to be with my child right now; she needs me.”

I smiled and put my hand on her shoulder. “Of course,” I said, “JJ and I will go find some coffee — would you like one? — and then, when you’re ready, we have some questions for you too, if you would be willing to answer them.”

“Am I a suspect?”

“No, not even slightly, but you could help us understand why Saoirse was targeted by helping us get to know her; plus, I don’t want to have to subject her to more questions.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Dunn said; “will you be around later this afternoon? I’ll answer whatever questions you have; and thanks for the offer, but I’m going to pass on the coffee; I don’t like it.”

An hour later, my coffee almost finished, we sat down with Mrs. Dunn.

“Can you tell us what sort of person Saoirse is? How is she as a student? Is she well liked?”

“She’s the best; she’s the best daughter I could have asked for, she does great in her studies and is well loved by her teachers and the classmates that she’s allowed me to meet. About the only thing that was ever a negative was Mary’s reaction to my Saoirse telling her she was gay. They fought over that. Personally, I thought Mary’s reaction was borderline homophobic, but they’ve mended since then. God, I’m so proud of her.”

“How about her home life? What’s her relationship to her father?”

Mrs. Dunn looked extremely sad. “Jack died four years ago; it was a real struggle for Saoirse; she and her father were attached at the hip.” She smiled reminiscently. “There wasn’t anything she didn’t involve him in, and she was so proud to have him see her graduate high school, but then that never happened.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“The funny thing is,” Mrs. Dunn continued, “Mary’s mother passed just a year before Jack, and so Greg Donaghue has been something of a surrogate dad to Saoirse, and I’ve become something of a surrogate mom to Mary.”

“Thank you,” I said, “we really appreciate you taking the time; you’ve been really helpful; now go be with Saoirse.”

“I don’t mean to get personal, Agent Prentiss, but are you a mother too?”

I smiled, blushing. “As a matter of a fact, I’ve almost finished the adoption process. She’s fifteen; her name’s Carrie.”

“Congratulations,” Mrs. Dunn said, smiling a true smile, “and you are in for the messiest years of your life. Still, I had a feeling, the way you’ve been acting around me, that you know the fright I’m feeling right now.”

“I do,” I said.

“Thank you.” She waved to us as she disappeared into Saoirse’s room again. After the door closed, I pulled out my phone.

“Hotch? Prentiss. I think we might have something.”

“Good. Come back to the station, we’re almost ready to present the profile.”

 

#

 

“So what did you learn at the morgue?” I asked Reid.

“Not a whole lot,” he said, “just that the gun was a .45 caliber and that the entry and exit wounds further support the theory that the unsub was not confident about where the best place to shoot was for maximum efficiency in terms of death, and neither victim had telltale signs of overkill. What about you?”

“Well, Saoirse Dunn can’t remember who attacked her and her friends; whether she’s blocked out the memory or whether she was unconscious already when she was shot, I can’t tell, but it looked like the latter, as there was a large bandage on her head, and reports were she was not shot in the head, so I’m thinking someone knocked her out first.”

“Why?” Morgan asked.

“I don’t know; certainly this person seemed to want to make her shooting almost humane; if she wasn’t conscious, she could possibly be less aware of the pain from the bullets, and apparently, there was some real muscle damage done by the embedded bullet; the surgery to repair it was extensive; we also learned that both she and Mary Donaghue suffered recent losses; Saoirse lost her father, and Mary, her mother.”

“So are we thinking mercy killer?” Rossi asked.

“I am,” I said.

“Emily thinks that the doctor that operated on Saoirse may be our unsub,” JJ said.

“It’s pure conjecture,” I admitted, “but she reacted in extreme fear when Dr. Fahey entered the room; she gripped my hand, hard, and her eyes dilated a lot and she tried to shrink away from him.”

“On the plane we thought student; someone the victims likely knew, or at least interacted with,” Morgan said, “are we dismissing that?”

“Not entirely,” Hotch replied, “but I think the evidence and the behavior points in that direction.” He pulled out his phone.

“This is Oracle; Batgirl speaking,” Garcia said.

“You know, if this is a mercy killer, the unsub probably also suffered a loss, and somehow the losses of the victims remind them of that,” Reid said.

“Garcia, run a list of all students who have experienced a loss in the last four years,” Hotch said, “include any who may have access to a .45; a parent, or a recent gun training and certification.”

“This is still going to be a long list,” Garcia said, “can we cut it down any more?”

“See if you can connect them to any of our victims in either string.” I said

“I can work with that,” Garcia said, “the Digital Dominatrix will do her magic and I will call you back ASAP. Oracle out!”

“I think we’re ready to deliver the profile,” Hotch said.

 

#

 

“The unsub we’re looking for is most likely a student, male, aged between 18 and 25. He recently suffered a loss, probably a parent, coach, sibling or some other close relationship,” Hotch began.

“We’re looking for a mercy killer,” Morgan continued, “this type of killer feels a deep, albeit twisted, sense of empathy with the victim, and strongly believes that he is ending their sufferings, and furthermore, our unsub may have completed a gun training and licensing course and is in possession of a legal firearm, meaning that we cannot track illegal sales of guns; he probably owns his own, or is in possession of one belonging to a close friend or family member.”

“The unsub is highly intelligent, charming and very socially adept,” I continued, “he can get his victims to confide the depth of their pain to him and he uses this to his advantage, and at some point, the victim expresses a current or past desire, however euphemistically, to die, which the unsub then takes literally.”

“We believe there is a great risk that he will attack again, and possibly soon. We also want to remind you, he is armed and dangerous. Thank you.” Hotch finished.

“Excuse me,” Boyd said, “Agent Hotchner, there’s been another attack; three victims, all students are being transported from the Avon Fields Golf Course.”

“What’s the mode of transportation?” I asked.

“Ambulance,” Boyd said, “I just got notification of the dispatch.”

“An ambulance? That’s a change in MO,” Morgan commented.

“And it hasn’t been a week since the last attack; that’s a major acceleration,” Hotch said.

“He’s devolving and fast,” I said.

 

#

 

The victims were a perfect match for our pattern; Billy Flanagan, James Lynch and Hanna Dressler; two Irish names and a German, and two of whom were considering a relationship and one that had been a former boyfriend, and we learned from talking with the boys that Flanagan and Dressler had recently lost parents and Lynch, a sister. Flanagan and Dressler both died in the hospital on the OR table but Lynch lived.

“Hey baby girl,” Morgan said, when he answered Garcia’s call, “I’m putting you on speaker.”

“Okay lovelies, I ran your request, and as I thought, it was a long list, but there is one student who stands out.”

“Who is he?”

“Oh my love, not he, she. Listen to this: Amie Lyman, Junior, lost her mother exactly four weeks ago, her father owns a gun store in Wichita, and gave her a .45 when she completed her training to have a gun license.”

“Garcia, does she have knowledge of the victims?”

“Yes, wonder boy, she is an international studies major, like Mary and August, shared an Arabic class with Brendan Collins, and her personal doctor is…huh, Dr. Evan Fahey is something that connects all the victims — he was the personal physician of all the victims in non-healthcare majors and taught all of those who were.”

“Prentiss, you said that Saoirse reacted in fear when Dr. Fahey entered the room?” Hotch asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Garcia, run a background on Fahey; in the meantime, let’s bring in Amie Lyman for questioning.”

“Will do, my lovelies. Laterz!”

“So we —” I began, but my phone rang.

“Prentiss,” I said.

“Hi, Mom; I’m at GW Hospital with your mother, and —”

“Oh Carrie, are you okay?!”

“I’m fine, just had a headache in class today, and your mom pulled me out of class and took me — wait, she’s telling me that you don’t have time, that you’re on a case. I’ll leave you alone —”

“No, honey, I always have time for you —” I put up my finger to the team to show that I would be a moment and stepped outside. “ — what happened?”

“I don’t know, I just started feeling really sick and the school nurse called all the numbers in my file, and Bev and George weren’t home and so they called your mother….”

“Poor kid; how are you feeling now?”

“I’m doing okay, I guess. Your mom had the doctors run all sorts of tests, but they ultimately just gave me something for the pain and sent me packing.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Carrie.”

“It’s okay.”

“No it’s not. I’m really glad to hear it was just a headache though; nothing a kiss, a glass of water and a little nap wouldn’t have cured.”

"I may have puked a bit before they sent me to the nurse," Carrie said, giggling nervously.

"Aww, sweetheart..." I said, feeling immensely guilty.

“Mom…the doctor, he kind of freaked me out….”

“How do you mean?”

“Like, I don’t know, he just made me uncomfortable; he looked at me in ways I didn’t like.”

“I’m so sorry, Carrie; do you want me to punch him?”

“No,” Carrie said giggling slightly, “but he and your mom got along well; they were talking about some gun club or something that, like, renowned doctors, film stars and government agencies use.”

“The Hills Fun Gun Club?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think that was it. I don’t really like guns.”

“I can start leaving mine at work if it would make you feel better,” I said, “but I have to say, Carrie, you’re a genius! You may have found a make or break the case!”

“Oh…well…you’re welcome?”

“Thank you, my love. I am so sorry I wasn’t around, but I’ll be back soon.”

“When?”

“Probably early tomorrow at the rate we’re going.”

“Oh right.” She sounded very disappointed.

“Grandma will probably have to stay the night, and I apologize in advance.” Carrie giggled. “Would you like me to call you before you go to bed?”

“…yeah.”

“Give me a call when you’re done getting ready, okay? I love you, Carrie.”

“I…I love you…too.”

“I hope you feel better.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Okay, good. I love you, Car, and I’ll talk to you later tonight okay? Bye and I love you!”

“I love you. Bye.”

The Hills Fun Gun Club was a gun club that had started in Beverly Hills, and with it’s high membership prices, it attracted an upper crust clientele, mostly big shot Hollywood types, sports surgeons, bankers and other folks with high 6 and 7 figure salaries, but the HFGC slowly opened chapters around the US, targeting governmental workers as well on both the federal and state levels, and cops got a 10% discount.

“Guys,” I said, running back into the room after hanging up with Carrie, “get Garcia back on the phone!”

“Speak and be heard,” Garcia said.

“Garcia, are you done searching Dr. Fahey?”

“Yep.”

“Does he have a membership to the Hills Fun Gun Club, Ohio Chapter?”

“Let’s see…Hills Fun Gun Club, Ohio…oh — yes he does.”

“Guys, I think we need to review the profile; I really think this guy might be our unsub,” I said, when Garcia hung up.

“He does fit a lot of the profile,” Morgan said slowly.

“And he has a connection to all nine of the victims.” Said Reid

“All we need to know is if he had the stressor of a recent loss.” Hotch said. “All right, we’ll keep our eyes on him. In the meantime, Prentiss, I want you to interview Lyman when she comes in.”

“But she’s innocent!” I protested.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Hotch said, “I don’t want to overlook her; and Prentiss — don’t go easy on her when you question her.”

“Of course not.”

About 20 minutes later, Amie Lyman was brought in and put into an interview room. I entered slowly, taking her in; she was small, sandy brown hair and vividly blue eyes that moved constantly about the room, taking in every inch of it. She seemed wary and exhibited a distinct lack of trust.

“Amie Lyman? I’m SSA Emily Prentiss with the FBI; I just need to ask you a few questions about the murders that took place earlier today.”

“I wasn’t involved,” she said clearly.

“Where were you at 1:55 this afternoon?”

“I was at the Avon Fields Golf course; the men’s and women’s golf teams practice there.”

“So you don’t deny being at the scene of the crime?”

“No.”

“Did you see anything suspicious? Anyone who was not supposed to be there?”

“No — wait, yes; there was a group of doctors who work at the hospital, but, like, not teachers I don’t think; they were like the ones that were from away and were, like, super rich and moved from country to country working at prestigious hospitals throughout the great American cities or whatever.”

I nodded and took out photos of all the victims and laid them out.

“Are any of these students familiar to you?”

“I knew Saoirse Dunn a bit; we bonded over loosing our favorite parents -- I loved my mom the way she did her dad; the rest of them I knew mostly by association; like, we would have classes and that….Oh wait, Aneesa, Aneesa Barakat right? I got to know her a bit; after my mom died, I was placed into foster care and my foster dad has been paying for me to go to school here, and I think I overheard him and my mother talking about adopting me….”

“Amie, can I ask about your gun license?”

“My Pop and I did that to bond; my birth mother never liked guns, but he did, and I wanted to impress him.”

“So that you didn’t feel like you were a burden?”

She shifted away from me and avoided eye contact. “Something like that.”

I nodded. “Amie, can I have your parents’ phone number? I’ll give them a call and have them come pick you up. Thanks for talking with me, you’ve been a help.”

I left and walked out to the outer room. Hotch looked at me with a neutral gaze, but he gave me the impression I was being scanned.

“So you believe her?”

“Yes I do,” I said, “I think she’s being honest, plus, apart from Saoirse and Aneesa, she did not give any reaction to knowing any of the male victims nor Mary Donaghue or Hanna Dressler.”

“I just think you should have let Morgan or Reid interview her further.”

“Her parents aren’t here yet, and you’re the boss,” I said, feeling protective of Amie for reasons I did not understand, “so go ahead. But remember that she said she was at the golf course practicing and so were a bunch of doctors; I bet you that Dr. Evan Fahey was there as well.”

“I’m worried you are not being objective here, Prentiss,” Hotch said gently, but not without reprieve.

“I just don’t want to send an innocent girl to prison.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I just know, Hotch.”

“That’s not good enough, and you know that, Prentiss.”

“Fine, call it an instinct, but you know who else could fit the profile of this unsub? Carrie.”

“I don’t —”

“Well think about it. I want to go ask Saoirse Dunn one more question.”

Hotch frowned at my retreating back.

A few moments later, I came back up to where Saoirse Dunn was resting, hanging out with her mother. I smiled at them through the window; they didn’t see me, but I could tell that Saoirse was very grateful to have her mother’s company, and even though it was just a headache, I again felt guilty that I had not been there with Carrie. I knocked.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Dunn, Saoirse, can I come in?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Dunn said, “Seer and I were just talking about auditions for The Merry Wives of Windsor next semester.”

“Shakespeare,” I said, nodding, “ambitious.”

“The word that describes Seer best,” Mrs. Dunn laughed.

“Saoirse,” I said, “can I ask if you knew Amie Lyman?”

“Yeah, we weren’t close or anything, but she formed a peer support group for students grieving the loss of parents; her loss had been so much more recent than mine, but I also figured, hey, I’ve been through it all, why not help others by telling my story, so I went to two or three meetings before I kind of realized it wasn’t my thing, but Amie and I still had a few classes together; I think she wanted to be accepted into pre-med. We also both met Aneesa Barakat there; she was one of the victims, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” I said.

“The poor girl,” Saoirse said, her voice filled with remorse, “she was a total sweetheart, and Brendan Collins was so excited to call her his sister.”

“Just one more question, Saoirse: while you’ve been recouperating here, have you and Dr. Fahey talked? I imagine he did most of the talking, but did he ever mention golfing?”

“Yeah,” Saoirse said frowning, “he really couldn’t shut up about it. He loved boasting about the exclusive clubs he’d played in with his buddies in, like, Beverly Hills and Miami and all that shit.”

I nodded. “Thanks again, Saoirse, you’ve been terrific.”

She smiled shyly. “Thank you; it was a pleasure, Agent; you know, you’re nothing like I thought an FBI agent would be; like, you’re kind and warm and sensitive and not all tough and cold and all that.”

I laughed. “Thank you for saying so. And now I really need to let you and your mother be alone.”

“Good luck,” Saoirse said.

“Agent Prentiss,” Mrs. Dunn offered her hand, “I hope we’ll see you again someday; feel free to look us up if you’re ever back in Cincinnati and bring your daughter.”

“I’d be honored,” I said, stepping out of the room.

 

#

 

I hated to be so, but I felt a certain sense of vindication when Garcia called back and said that she had dug some more on Dr. Fahey and discovered that far from being a righteous doctor, he had struggled a lot as a youth, growing up in Beverly Hills and Malibu, he had a sheltered, almost cloistered life, and parents whose attention to him was minimal, and he had several juvenile offenses stacked against him, including petty theft, burglary, attempted rape and accessory to murder, all before the age of 20. Further digging revealed even more to suggest that the one part of our profile that had been correct was that he fell neatly into the Mercy Killer type of serial killer, and that he had lost his sister at 24. But why, I wondered, had a serial killer, even one in hiding, gone into the field of surgery? Why a practice that was anathema to his urges? It didn’t make sense.

“Evan Fahey, you are under arrest for the murders of nine University of Cincinnati students….”

But as he was led away by Detective Boyd and Hotch, I felt relief; the day, as long as it had been, was over, and I looked at my watch: 12:45. I hoped we would board the plane and I could go home and see Carrie.

I looked out the window of the G550, wishing that I could see either the ground below us or the shapes of the clouds, something to keep my mind occupied, or maybe keep my mind free of occupation. The gentle breathing of JJ beside me and the slight snores of Hotch and Rossi acted as a sleep aid, but only just; I was so tired, so utterly tired, and I felt drained in a way I usually did not; something about my emotional reaction to Amie Lyman made no sense whatsoever.

“A penny for your thoughts?” Reid asked me quietly, hoping to not wake JJ.

“You got a lot of pennies?”

Reid smiled. “What’re you thinking?”

“I…I think I’m loosing my ability to compartmentalize, Reid.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just…when I was interviewing Amie Lyman, I…I lost my objectivity for a moment; something about her just struck me as…familiar?”

“Familiar how?”

“When I learned that her mother passing away also meant that she had no one else left and was put into foster care.”

“You think it’s like what happened to Carrie?”

“It’s exactly what happened to Carrie.”

“You know,” Reid paused, scratching his chin, “maybe you’re loss of compartmentalization isn’t a loss at all; maybe you’re just getting used to the idea that you have to worry about someone else than yourself now.”

“How are you so wise?”

“I have an IQ of 187.”

“Yeah, but that sort of thing isn’t generally dependent on your IQ; I mean, that sort of statement usually implies a personal connection to the subject.”

Reid smiled again but did not elaborate. “So,” he said, “when do I and the rest of the team who aren’t JJ get to really meet Carrie, and get to know her beyond the girl that was orphaned by the unsubs who targeted her parents?”

“Soon, I think; if she wants to, I was thinking barbecue at my place….God, I can’t wait to land and see her again.”

 


	6. A Key, A Cell Phone, and a Message

  
A Key, a Cell Phone and a Message

By the time we were about halfway back to Virginia, the sun was already beginning to rise, and by the time I got home, Carrie was waking up just as I was completely and utterly ready for bed. I had been so grateful that Hotch did not insist that we do paperwork that night, and told us all to go get some sleep, and he promised us he would as well, but we all doubted that. However, at Quantico, as I picked up the relevant files, I asked Garcia, who was only a little more awake, if she could get a home office set up for me so I could do as much work from home as I possibly could. She promised me she needed a nap but would stop by in the afternoon.

To tell you the truth, I probably should not have driven from Quantico back to DC; I was beyond exhausted and it seemed like there was every chance I would nod off and get into an accident, and the thought of that happening was devastating, so I turned the radio on, selected the most obnoxious rock station I could find and rolled the windows down in the car to counteract the soothing rhythms of the diesel engine in my car.

By the grace of God, I managed to get back to my house without any sort of accident, and pulling up beside the house was the most amazing feeling; there was a bed in there, and I had put extra thick curtains over the windows in my bedroom for this very reason. I scanned the nearby parked cars, and to my sadness, but not to my surprise, my mother’s Mercedes was nowhere in sight; she must have left as soon as she deemed Carrie reliably asleep. I just prayed that Carrie hadn’t woekn up in the night needing her.  
In fact, when I headed upstairs, she was just starting to stir; I could tell that she had apparently slept quite deeply, which she deserved.

“Hey,” I said, sitting down on the edge of her bed.

“Morning,” she said sleepily.

“Feel up to making your own breakfast today?” I asked only slightly joking.

“Yeah, why?”

“I need to get some sleep.”

Carrie looked closer at me. “Yeah, whoa, you really do; jeeze, how late were you up?”

“Oh, probably about twelve hours,” I said, glancing at my watch.

“I’ll be fine,” Carrie said, “but…I mean, are you asking for my permission to take a nap?”

“No,” I rebutted, “just letting you know you’ll have to wake me if you need anything.”

Carrie looked at me, her head slightly cocked to the side, but her expression was warm. “You’re still trying too hard,” she said gently. “Go to sleep, Mom. Don’t worry about me.”  
I smiled, brushed her hand, went into my room, drew the curtains, and without even changing out of my clothes, was fast asleep. I had almost forgotten it was Saturday and hoped that Carrie could entertain herself.

After I woke up, I headed downstairs and made myself a sandwich, and smiled at Carrie completely engrossed in a Nintendo DS; I hadn’t even realized that she might be into video games. Being an old fart, I hoped I could introduce her to…what, Monopoly? I was pretty solitary as a teenager, and I don’t know if I could introduce her to games that would appeal to her age. Seeing that she was well engrossed in her game, I gave Garcia a call to see if she would come over and help me set up an office where I could work from home as much as possible.

She arrived an hour later at 3:45, making me keenly aware of how much time I had slept. Carrie, being in the living room, answered her knock.

“Hello,” Garcia said, sounding a little more brusque than usual — and I should state here that brusque by Garcia standards is hardly what any one else would call brusque, but that’s so who she is, always so bubbly and irrepressibly cheerful and optimistic, always seeing the good in people; “I’m Penelope.”

“I’m Carrie, and that is a mad crazy outfit you’re wearing.”

“Thank you,” Garcia said, warming up to Carrie already, such was her gift, “is Emily around?”

“In the kitchen, come in.”

“Hey,” she said to me, “so I’m here to install an at-home office like you asked for. So you have your own computer?”

“Just my laptop,” I said

“Give it here; oh, and this is my friend Jarrod; he’s my go-to for all things wire.”

“Thanks, Penelope.”

As she worked, I quietly made up lunch for everyone and sat back in the lounge chairs near the exit to the back patio. Finally, Garcia and her friend got doing wiring my office and came down, and I called Carrie in from where she was lounging on the front porch and we ate, Carrie and Garcia getting to know each other. After lunch, we went up to a corner of the guest bedroom, the only space that would make sense and Garcia walked me through what she had done.

“Okay,” she said, flexing her fingers, “so your machine is a little bit old, Em, and I don’t normally work with the Mac OS, but no OS can out-OS the Wizard of Oz here — actually, would that be the wizard of OS? —” Carrie laughed, “ — and I basically installed a rootkit that connects this computer to your work computer, but in a way that neither computer thinks there’s another one on its hard drive — incidentally, if you want my opinion, go out and get yourself a nice, big one terabyte or so external drive. Now,” she moved the cursor around, “this is your normal hard drive, and this new one is the hard drive of your work computer, and all the FBI databases and all of that are fully integrated onto this machine as well, so go ahead and pull up anything here that you know is unfinished paperwork.” She moved out of the seat and indicated I sit down and I opened the file on the case we had just returned from in Cincinnati, and it was all there.

“You’re amazing, PG,” I said.

“Aww thank you,” she said, “now stop making me blush. As far as talking with the rest of us, this one —” she pointed to another new logo on the bottom icon bar, “will automatically connect you to our systems so if we’re giving a briefing in the conference room you can always be there, even if you’re here.”

“Great, so now Mom can’t escape work, even at home?” Carrie asked. Garcia, normally almost as genius as Reid, looked completely stumped.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “this is only for emergencies and times that I’m more useful here.” She nodded, but her expression had gone a bit surly. She left.

“I hope she’s okay,” Garcia said, watching her retreating back.

“I think so,” I said, “but there’s so much we’re both still just trying to…trying to work out, I guess?” I looked uncomfortably at Jarrod. Garcia nodded.

“Well, I think we’ve gotten almost everything out of the way, except for this beauty,” she indicated an all-in-one printer machine, “this was an old unit of Jarrod’s; if you do any actual paperwork here that you need catalogued at work, scan it, and this beauty’ll fax it immediately over to your work computer; and, if you want my last little bit of advice, get a desktop computer to use in here so that your laptop will still be mobile; it’ll only take me a minimum of minutes to get that all set up.”

I nodded. “Thank you for everything, Penelope; do I need to pay you?”

“No!” Garcia said, astounded, “you’re my friend, Em. You do not need to pay.”

“What if I insist?”

“Then…I don’t know…Jarrod and I could use a coffee?”

“Well okay, I’ll get some ready.”

I gave cups to Garcia and Jarrod, and poured a mug for myself and walked them to the door, where we made our goodbyes, and I sent them off, telling Garcia I would see her at work, and as they made their way to Jarrod’s van, a post worker came up to me with a small brown package and I smiled; I had written Mother a note outlining the few things I needed her to do while she was keeping my house for me, and that included talking to my landlord and my phone service provider. It looked like she had obliged. I sat down on the stoop of the porch after signing for the package, sipping my coffee and thinking.

“Mom?” Carrie had appeared on the porch, likely looking for me; she had filled her own mug of coffee.

“Be careful with that stuff,” I warned, “if you keep at it, you’ll be as addicted as I am.” I moved to the side, giving her room to sit down beside me if she liked. “This is for you, by the way; call it a welcome home gift, if you like.”

Carrie took the package and opened it; it wasn’t much, but she smiled: a phone, a key to the door and instructions on the code and use of the home security system I had installed, one of the most robust, recommended by Hotch, and with some PG modifications.

“Thanks,” She said.

“How have you been? How’s school?” I asked.

“It’s been okay,” she said, “I’m really enjoying a lot of the things I do, and a lot of classes, and there’s this girl I really like, Maria; she’s brassy and bold, and totally sassy; you can imagine my total surprise when she said she was Cuban.” Carrie laughed. “If she likes you, you’ve got the school’s best protector, but if she doesn’t…look out Eastern, Maria Valdez is on the rampage!”

“So you’re from similar cultures?”

“No, not really; I’m, like, 98% Mexican, although according to Mom, her father — my maternal grandfather — had come from El Salvador, but my grandmother and all of my dad’s family were Mexican, and he met my mom growing up in LA, fell in love, got married and honeymooned in Argentina, and then moved to Colorado shortly after I was born.”

“So you must be good at Spanish then?”

“Seriously?” Carrie asked, showing her teen attitude.

“Yes seriously,” I responded in Spanish, “I did not want to make an assumption one way or another.”

“Whoa, you can too?” Carrie responded, also in Spanish, “I’m impressed.”

“Thank you,” I said in Spanish.

“Can this be our thing? Speaking in Spanish? It helps me feel…connected to Mom and Dad?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thank you,” Carrie said, switching back to English. “What other languages do you speak?”

In each one in turn, I answered her: “Arabic, French, Italian, Greek, and a little amount of Russian.”

“I am impressed. So far I only speak English and Spanish.”

“The Ambassador’s Daughter,” I said. “How about you, though? How are you?”

This time, Carrie took her time answering, and I could see a million emotions cross her face. “I don’t know,” she said at last, “like, I…there’s this queer mix of familiar and not familiar, you know?”

“Yeah; you go to school, hang out with Rachel, and do a lot of the same after school activities you did then, but, ultimately, you come home to me.”

“Right,” Carrie said, “and I…I really like you — no, I love you, I do; you’ve been nothing less than wonderful to me, but…I…please don’t hate me….”

“I won’t.”

“I want Mom and Dad back, and I know that won’t ever happen, and I really, really want Danny back. I sound so ungrateful. I told you you would hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said, “I don’t think I ever could….Carrie, I don’t know if this is the right thing to say, but what I want from you, apart from you being happy…I want you to be honest with me about how you feel, and I want to make this house a place where you can feel safe doing so; I never want you to hold back because you worry you’ll make me mad. You can always talk to me, okay? Also, I don’t want you to worry about whether or not you’re grateful; you are under no obligation to be, and I don’t want you to feel like you need to be the perfect daughter; you’ll always be enough just as you are.”

“Warts and all?”

“Warts and all. You know, you once said you thought I was moving too fast; well I don’t want you to move too fast either; if you’re not ready to call me mom, please don’t feel obligated to; I will happily respond to ‘Emily’ or ‘Em’, or if you want to make up your own term, do it.”

“Is it wrong to call both you and Mom, well, mom?”

“Does it feel wrong to you? That’s all that matters.”

“I like calling you that in private, and even in front of some of your friends, but you’re not Mom, and Mom wasn’t you….Ugh, I just….” She sobbed then growled, leaning into my side. I wrapped my arm around her and held her close.

“Do you think answers will come?” She asked finally.

“Yes, I do,” I said in Spanish, “and you’ll know when they do.”

“Mom,” Carrie said in English, half-laughing, half sobbing, “will you invite some of your friends over for dinner? I’ll make Chimichanga and maybe I’ll feel a little less out of place?”

“Mind if I invite JJ?” I asked.

“Yeah. I was also hoping you’d invite that other coworker of yours, the one who mentioned all the details and facts of the jet you guys flew on? I liked him; he was funny.”  
“Spencer? Sure, I’d love to have him over, and yes, he is funny, and easily lovable; bit of a big kid himself.” We laughed. “You should also invite Rachel and Maria sometime.”

“Yeah. Now, is there something between you and JJ?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, kid,” I said airily.

“Oh please,” Carrie said grinning naughtily, “the other day when she was hanging out? I swear, I could feel her body heat when I mentioned you that first dinner that the three of us, and look how eager you were to invite her when I asked if you would invite your friends over.”

I laughed. “She’s just my friend, Carrie.”

“Sure,” she responded sarcastically. “Now if I said I liked her, too? Not in the way you do, but all the same?”

“Then,” I said, “I would not care for your implication, but would be happy you like her too.”

“Mom?” Carrie said after a moment of silence, and I heard the change in her tone, almost as if she knew something, “why haven’t I met your dad? I’ll be honest, since I can’t have Dad with me —” she sniffled “ — it would mean a lot to have a close male loved one who was related to a loved one.”

“Oh Carrie,” I said, swallowing on my own sob, “there’s no one I wish I could introduce you to more than my dad; we actually got along, unlike me and Mother, but he died when I was your age.”

“Can you tell me about him?”

I smiled, took a final gulp of my coffee and said: “Well, his name was Arthur St. John Prentiss, and he was a pilot; he enlisted in the air force in college, and flew B-52s in the Korean and Vietnam wars, but was given an honorable discharge in ‘66 when he decided to work on my mother’s father’s campaign for New York Senate, after finishing his current tour of duty, and then for three years until I was born, Papa flew for PanAm airlines, and after I was born, he became a stay at home dad as Mom pursued her ambassador duties, and she took both of us all around the world with her, which I think grated on him, ironically; he left us when I was twelve and then got cancer a year later, fought it for two more years and died just before I turned fifteen, and months later, Mom was posted in Italy. I wasn’t through grieving for him, and add to that my teenage hormones, well I was a mess. I would go to sleep dreaming of him taking me up in his little Cessna when we still lived in upstate New York and he and I would go out flying as our father-daughter time. I probably knew enough that if I had wanted to follow in his footsteps I could have, until I was 17 and diagnosed as nearsighted. Then I switched my ambitions to the FBI; anything but politics; I blamed the stress of politics for his leaving, and not letting me take care of him when he was ill.”

“Was…was that the really personal story from Italy you didn’t want to tell me?”

“No, but it overlapped with that story.”

“Will you tell it to me?”

“Soon, kiddo; now, why don’t you see if I have what you need to make your Chimichanga and if not, I’ll go get whatever you do need after I call JJ and Spencer.”

Just as they were walking into the house, the phone rang, and I made my way over to answer it.

“The Prentiss Residence,” I said, looking at Carrie out of the corner of my eye, “Emily speaking.”

“I guess I’ll have to get used to that, although I preferred you just answering as ‘Prentiss’,” Hotch said, mirth in his voice.

“Hey Hotch, what’s up?”

“I have an offer for you: for as long as we worked together and taught, Gideon and I have always scouted young agents who want to consider profiler training down the road, and there is a young woman, Ashley Seaver, who I think have what it takes, and she’s been at the top of her class, and so we are going to bring her on weekends with the team to gain field experience, so you can spend the weekends with Carrie.”

“Oh Hotch,” I said emotionally, “thank you.” I paused before adding, somewhat recklessly, “not that I’m not three hundred percent grateful, but why are you offering me something you deny yourself with Jack?”

Hotch answered exactly as I imagined, and my heart broke: “Jack still has his mother, and being your Unit Chief, I have a level of responsibility to the team that you do not. So, do you accept?”

“Of course,” I said, “thank you.”

“This is all dependent on Strauss’s agreement of course, as taking a trainee into the field is controversial, but I think I can make it happen.”

“Thanks again,” I said.

“I would love to have you both over for dinner some night,” Hotch said, “may I call you when there is a good time?”

“Certainly,” I said, wondering if I should invite him to tonight

“I’ll see you on Monday, then,” Hotch said, “see you, Prentiss.”

“Bye, Hotch.”

“Hey Mom?”

“What do you need?”

“Spices, guac and tortillas, plus maybe some more oil, cheap stuff, for frying.”

“Okay,” I said, “there’s a Safeway on 14th a few blocks south; you want to come?”

“Sure, I should know where my local supermarket is.”

“Fantastic; I’ll call JJ and Spencer in the car.”

“So does that mean I get to drive?” Carrie asked cheekily.

“Ha ha,” I replied, “good one; let’s get you your learner’s permit first.”

“I had mine in Colorado,” Carrie said as we walked to the car, “but never got enough hours to get my actual license, but Dad always said if I had, that would be his birthday present for me for my sweet sixteen.” She smiled sadly. We got into the car, I turned it on, pulled out, did a youee, and headed down 14th to the store, and we walked around and got what Carrie needed for her meal plus other things I wanted and a few general foodstuffs that were needed and also called JJ and Reid, both of whom were eager to come over; Reid who didn’t live too far away said he would probably be there before us.

“Dang,” I said when Carrie and I finished our shopping, “I need diesel. Honey — do you mind me calling you that?”

“No, I like it.”

“Good to know; anyway, you mind going home via the gas station?”

“Nope, I like getting to see the city, but I probably won’t care in a month or two.” We laughed.

Reid was indeed waiting for us after we came back, and immediately moved in to help, and he and Carrie started talking. JJ arrived a few moments later, having taken the metro; we hung back, watching Carrie work in the kitchen while talking to Reid; he was telling her of his Las Vegas childhood and his ability to perform magic, and performed an unplanned for demonstration.

“Hey,” Carrie said suddenly, “where’s my knife?!”

“In your bun,” Reid said. Carrie frowned, and felt around in the loose bun she’d put her hair into to cook. She had been using a smaller pairing knife, making it easier for Reid to perform his sleight of hand.

“That was good,” she said, laughing, “now let me cook.”

“As you wish,” Reid said smiling.

After a while, the food was done, and I came in to help plate it and get the drinks. I poured wine for the adults.

“Can I have some?” Carrie begged, testing my limits, I suppose.

“Nope, not yet.”

“Just a tiny little bit?”

“No refills,” I said sternly, “it’s bad enough I’m letting you get addicted to coffee, but this stuff actually has negative consequences.” I got another glass and filled it about half again as much as I’d poured for JJ, Reid and myself.

“Wow, this is delicious,” Reid exclaimed, biting into his Chimichanga. JJ moaned pleasurably and nodded. I smiled. Both she and Reid got along so well with Carrie, and with both of them, she had been able to develop an easy rapport. It was enough to make me wonder….Well, I didn’t have to arrive at that decision tonight, but just lean back and enjoy this moment between all of us.


	7. The Mall

  
The Mall

Going down I-395 to I-95 towards Quantico, I thought a lot on the previous weekend; dinner with JJ and Reid had been the most fun I had had in a long time, and a lot of that was due to Carrie, I think, and it amazed me how different I felt with her in my life. If I’m honest, I don’t feel like I’m a parent yet, but then how do I describe the love I feel for her? Just as 395 became 95, I flashed back to when I tucked her in last night:

 

“Are you comfy Carrie? Can I get you anything?”

“Mom, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why did you take me in?”

I paused. _I need to know I can be human_ , I had told Hotch, and while there was some philosophical truth to that, it wasn’t the real reason; I didn’t even fully know what the real reason was, precisely. Was it to prove to myself that I would not turn out like my mother, or was it different? And regardless of what it was to prove, why did I choose her? Hers wasn’t the first case we’d worked on that involved children, and it wouldn’t be the last, so why her?

“I don’t really know,” I admitted, “but I think somehow, I just felt like, oh man, like I…I don’t know.”

“You wouldn’t have done all this if you didn’t know,” Carrie said impatiently, yet sagely, “please, Mom, try to explain it to me; I need to know.”

“Okay, you remember when Hotch had you in the interview room when we interviewed Ervin the unsub?”

“Yeah,” Carrie said, embarrassed, “I cried on your shoulder when we were done, and told you I was so scared, and you said I’d done great.”

“You did,” I assured her; “and when you admitted it, I had already felt just how scared you were, and I felt like I wanted to protect you from it, keep you from being scared like that ever again, and I mean in ways beyond the empathy required by the job, and when Hotch wanted you there, normally I would have done whatever needed doing to solve the case, but in that case, I thought it was simply a shitty thing to make you do; I wanted to protect you from that as well, and I volunteered — insisted, really — that I be in that interview room with you.”

“But why?”

“I really don’t know, Carrie; I know that’s not the answer you want, but emotions and the heart are fickle, illogical things that rarely make sense; ask Spencer to talk about his feelings and watch his face to see what I mean; he’s not comfortable with them because he cannot explain them or rationalize why he feels any given way.”

“You could have chosen to have me stay a day or two, and then put me into foster care,” Carrie persisted, “or try to pawn me off onto Rachel’s family, or Uncle Raul regardless of his feelings about me, but you didn’t. You took me in, and now you want to adopt me fully.”

“I do,” I said, “I love you, Carrie; I don’t know exactly why; I could say how your desire to prove you were a good daughter resonated with me, a lifelong struggle of my own, or that the devastation you experienced shook me to my core, or whatever else, and while all of that is true, those aren’t the only reasons, but there’s just something there that I can’t express other than to say I love you. I know you want answers, and I want to give them to you, and maybe I’ll be able to better articulate it later….Are you afraid I’ll stop loving you once the newness wears off?”

Carrie nodded.

“I will always love you,” I vowed, “even if I can’t explain why, I know; I just do, and I will do my hardest to consistently prove it to you. Okay?”

“Okay.” She said softly.

“Get some sleep, Care-Care, and that’s my new nickname for you if you like it.”

She rolled her eyes but smiled. “It’s no worse that Carrie-kins, like Dad called me,” she said.

“You know he and your mom love you so much and will always be with you, right?” I said.

She nodded, yawning.

“All right. Good night, Care-Care; I love you so much.”

“I love you too; all three of you.”

I smiled, kissed her on the forehead, and left for my room, turning off all the lights except her night light.

Then, of course, there was what she said about me and JJ; I blushed and felt myself go a little warm; the part that scared me was that there was something there, only I didn’t really know what it was; when I was 17 and mom and I were stationed in Beirut, a teenage Lebanese girl had smiled at me in a friendly way; she had been so cute, and the light brown color of her hijab matched perfectly with her black top, making me laugh inside, seeing as fashion conscious teenage girls were the same the world over; but when she had smiled, my stomach flipped in a pleasant way and goosebumps appeared on my arms and I felt a pleasant chill wave through my body. I had dismissed it though; boys made me feel that way, less intensely, yes, but they did still; but after Italy, fifteen and the…my emotions were constantly changing, beyond what was normal for my teen hood, and most of it, especially the rage, I could attribute to what happened in that narrow alleyway in Rome.

Then, years later, shaped by my childhood, Rome, the loss of my father, I had entered the BAU in the middle of my strongest vow ever, that no boy would ever get that close to me again and I could avoid ever being that vulnerable again. But I met JJ, and my stomach swooped like it had that evening in Beirut. Somehow, from the short time she’s known JJ, and the even shorter times she’s seen us together, Carrie deduced all that and made it out to be that I had feelings for JJ, and I had dismissed her, gently I hoped, by joking about it.

 

 

Carrie liked to get up with me, even though I try to be out of the house at 5:30 so I can get to work at 6:30, 6:25 if I push my luck with the cops, and she didn’t have to be on the school bus until 7:45, but we had a pleasant talk as I quickly wolfed down some coffee and a bagel with lox; I usually stopped at Peets coffee just outside the office to get a refill of coffee and a breakfast sandwich just to be sure I stayed awake until the workday began.

I met Morgan at the entry way, also clutching a cup of coffee and we made easy chatter as we walked to the elevators, up to the sixth floor and into the bullpen; I walked over to my desk and turned on my computer; not trusting technology the way Garcia did, though far from Reid’s complete avoidance of it, I opened the file I had been working on just to be sure it was all there. It was; I sighed gratefully and sat down.

“Morning, Emily,” Reid said.

“Morning,” I said.

“Hey, I had fun last night.”

“Me too.”

“Wait, what’s this, Prentiss? You had fun with pretty boy but you didn’t think to invite the one and only Derek Morgan?”

I laughed. “I’m trying to make sure that I get all of you over soon, but I don’t want to inundate Carrie with all of my friends, plus she really ought to invite some of her friends over as well; I really want to meet them.”

“She will when she’s ready.”

“Yeah. I promise you and Hotch will be the next group of invitees.”

“I look forward to it.”

At that moment, JJ walked in, beamed warmly at me, and I swear my heart skipped a beat, but why? I suppose it didn’t matter, as she went off towards her office anyway.

So that left the team with little to do than sit around, finish our paperwork and just chat and do things, but finally, the afternoon came around and JJ reappeared.

“Guys, we have a case,” she said.

“Where are we going this time?” Reid asked.

“Local,” JJ said. “The Potomac Mills Mall in Woodbridge, VA. Police there asked us to help with a kidnapping.”

We went there, met the detective in charge, and entered the locked down mall and began setting up, familiarizing ourselves with the mall, how much ground we needed to cover, and interviewed the abducted girl, Katie Jacobs’s family, her distraught mother, Beth — who I really, really, really wanted to hug super tight — and her aunt, uncle and cousin, who had all been out for a family day at the mall. Beth let on that Katie had severe asthma, and needed her meds, otherwise an attack could be deadly.

While Reid, his usual self, rattled off all manner of statistics and theories, we all threw ourselves into the search and keeping the family updated. But it was frustrating; we found nothing, and in spite of using all the manpower we had, searching the mall top to bottom, calling out for Katie, we could not find her. I didn’t tell Hotch that it was getting hard for me to breathe as a cold feeling of anxiety settled in my chest. Katie was six; Carrie was fifteen; even if she was in Katie’s place, she could take care of herself…right? Stop it, Emily! Focus!

After more fruitless attempts at finding her, which included Garcia trying her best to find Katie on the mall’s hopelessly outdated security cameras, and seeing her leave the arcade, but unable to tell where she was going, we eventually decided that while the Woodbridge Police would continue looking, Hotch recalled the BAU, telling us to focus on the family. JJ took Katie’s parents, telling Beth that she should try and humanize Katie, tell about her, and try and de-objectify her. We took various members of the family to interrogate them a little bit more intensely than at that point. Reid and Morgan took the cousin, Jeremy, Hotch took the uncle, Paul, and I had the aunt, Susan Jacobs, who told me that she used to work in a mall, and that her purpose that day was to get a new, engraved cigarette lighter for her husband.

Meanwhile, Reid and Morgan tried to get Jeremy to open up, taking him back to the arcade in hopes of jolting his memory, and with some reluctance, Jeremy admitted to them that he was just starting to see girls in a new light, and played up his masculinity by playing a very violent video game, trying to impress the object of his affection whilst neglecting his cousin, Katie, who was scared and overstimulated by the relentless noise of the arcade, begging her cousin to leave, that she didn’t like it, and wanted ice cream. When Jeremy finally deigned to give his cousin his attention, she wasn’t there. The interview culminated in Jeremy having a panic attack, and Reid stepping in and really trying to understand the young boy, which, he naturally succeeded.

But time was running out; the statistics show that in child abduction cases, the window to discover that child alive is about 24 hours, and sometimes, if the offender knows the police are involved, that window narrows to only one. We all felt it, and Morgan and Reid got Hotch’s permission to go over to the Jacobs’s house and explore Katie’s room. Therein, they found two objects that spoke to Katie’s behavior — a stain on her mattress proved she’d been wetting the bed, likely in some primal terror of something or someone, and all her barbies, usually objects of a young girl’s affections, were mutilated and disfigured — something that suggested a deep sense of self loathing or fury or both.

Back at the mall, Paul Jacobs was beginning to feel it too, as we pressed the family that Katie’s abductor was probably someone she knew, a close family member, and broke away from the crowd to light up a cigarette. I followed him.

“I haven’t touched a cigarette in almost two years; I gave up,” he confessed to me. That clicked in my mind to something his wife had told me, and when Reid and Morgan relayed their findings on to us, Hotch immediately demanded that we separate Susan and Paul Jacobs to continue our investigation as we were beginning to suspect that this was far different from what we had originally thought. Hotch told us that he thought that Paul Jacobs was most likely molesting his neice, but that still didn’t tell us where Katie was being held. I had an idea, and returned to grill Susan Jacobs. I launched into my first accusation:

“You told me you worked in retail,” I said to her, “what you neglected to tell me was that you worked at this very mall.” She tried to protest, saying that it had no bearing on what was happening, but she didn’t deny it. Fury began building in me, and I laid heavily into her. I showed Jacobs Katie’s doll.

“This is how Katie sees herself,” I said, borderline yelling at her, “self loathing. Dirty. Disgusting. This is what your husband made her feel….Do you have any idea how terrified she must have felt? How confused? While you lay awake, protecting an animal, who always had those urges and always will…you have robbed Katie of her childhood, are you going to steal the rest of her life from her as well?”

Jacobs feebly tried to deny my accusations, bleating ‘no’ and sobbing in her fear and anger, and perhaps, in another life, another set of circumstances, I would have felt something for her, but now, all I had was barely controlled rage that she blamed a six year old for her abuse, and for the troubles it brought her life and her marriage.

Finally, with everything we had learned, we realized where Katie most likely was, and found her, more dead than alive, her mouth duct taped shut so no one could hear her cries — “someone with asthma that bad could die if her mouth is obstructed, didn’t you know that?!” I had spat at Jacobs, disgusted — and on the verge of death.

“Someone get the medics!” Hotch cried in a desperate, scared tone I had never heard him use before. I realized I wasn’t the only one whose skin this case had gotten under, with all it’s implications and the questions of humanity it raised. For several breathless minutes, the medics desperately worked to counteract the asthma and get Katie breathing again, and just as we were all — no more so than Beth Jacobs — sure she was gone, she gave a cough, and the flatlining EKG spiked. She continued to cough and finally started breathing again.

It was dark when we went outside, making me realize how much time had passed since we first arrived. Most of my team watched the medics load Katie into the ambulance, and the police arrest Paul and Susan Jacobs, but I stepped away from the group towards where the Bureau SUVs were waiting for us and pulled out my cell phone and dialed my home.

“Hello?” Carrie answered sleepily.

“Hey you,” I said, finally letting out my emotions. “Did I wake you?”

“Sort of,” she replied.

“I’m sorry, honey,” I said. I wanted to cry, hearing her, sleepy but assuredly healthy.

“You okay, Mom?” Carrie asked, hearing my husky voice.

“Yeah…yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Oh….Okay. Hey Mom, we got something in the post, something I think you’ll like. I left it on the dining room table for you.”

“Oh?” I asked brightening, “what is it?”

“It’s a surprise is what it is,” Carrie replied playfully.

“Well then, I can’t wait,” I told her.

“Yeah,” she replied.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” I said. “I’ll let you get back to sleep. I love you, Care-Care.”

“Love you too,” she said. It struck me that she sounded more emotional and — if I may — sincere in saying so than she had before.

“Bye, Carrie.”

“Bye.”

*

I got into the front seat of the SUV that Hotch drove. As we drove back towards Quantico, I looked out the window, trying to sort out my emotions before I got home.

“You okay, Prentiss?” Hotch asked me with a sidelong glance at me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t prepared for all those…feelings.”

“I know, and I’m proud of you; in spite of everything, you did your job well tonight.”

“Thanks,” I said. “What would you have done?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just…what if I had a brother, and Carrie was his daughter, not mine, and I discovered that my husband was hurting her in the way Jacobs was hurting his niece? I don’t ever want to think I would deny it to the level Susan Jacobs did, and by extension, participating in the abuse?”

“I don’t know if you can answer that, Prentiss,” Hotch said. “There isn’t an answer for that, and even if there was, it wouldn’t be good. I know how you feel.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. Haley has a sister, and although she is unmarried, she has had a record of choosing superb boyfriends, but that could easily be my brother-in-law; Katie could just as easily have been Jack.”

“Have you called him?”

“Not yet; you?”

“First thing after we got outside. You should call Jack.”

“There’s another dynamic at work here,” Hotch said.

“I know,” I said. “Do it anyway, once we park at Quantico; you’ll feel a little better for having heard his voice, even if you or I can never answer the question.”

Hotch looked at me for a long moment, then nodded.

“Thank you, Prentiss; I will.” He said.

*

I didn’t even go into the building; once Hotch parked, I bid him and the rest of the team good night, walked to my car, and drove back to DC; I wanted to see what Carrie’s surprise was, and I really needed, now that I had heard her voice, to see her, to know her sleep was peaceful. Finally, I pulled up, jumped out of the car and walked into my house, kicked off my shoes and went into the dining room. There, on the table, was a large brown envelope with the seal of the State of Virginia on it, as well as the seal of the city of DC, and on a post-it taped to the envelope, in Carrie’s neat hand, was a date: 10-27-07. I opened the envelope and pulled out — my heart lept — the adoption papers, with the court date. The papers were to be signed by the judge, Carrie and myself, owing, I supposed, to Carrie’s age. Quickly, I grabbed the pen I kept in my go bag, added my signature, and then ran, as quietly as possible, up the stairs.

Carrie was indeed peacefully sleeping, her breaths slow, deep and even. I stood there watching her, hoping that I wouldn’t wake her a second time, and just savored the feeling of what I now knew. Closing the door, I approached quietly, and kissed her forehead, still praying that I wouldn’t wake her a second time. I then retreated through the door between our rooms, and once I closed said door, I allowed myself to sit on the edge of my bed and cry.


End file.
